Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemst belongs to Hiromu Arakawa, Square Enix, FUNmation, VIZ and anything else I've forgotten.

Ashes: Part II

Dear Riza,

I want to first say I never expected things to turn out this way. I never did, if anything, I thought I was the one who would die. But I was wrong... like I am with everything else. I am so sorry, Riza. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, as the goddamn, selfish bastard that I am.

You know what I was going to do, though? I was going to wait after until after this entire episode with the Fuhrer was over. The ring I slipped onto the chain was an engagement ring, set with a ruby to match your beautiful eyes. That's right. Somewhere along the road up, I realized that I truly cared about, more than I expected and I had this blinding hope that maybe you did too. So a few weeks ago, I went out to a jeweler to buy a locket and planned for weeks to ask you out on a date, but there never seemed to be the right time. Then the recent problems with the Fuhrer and the Elric brothers came up, along with all the danger... and I got scared. Just before we left, I ran to buy the ring and prayed to God that if we both came out of it alive, I'd even kneel in front of everyone in the military before you (and yes, humiliate myself) in the typical clichéd fashion to make the second biggest decision in my life.

...But there's no chance of that happening anymore. Both my dreams and hopes for the future just went out the window. I knew it was too good to be true. I'm so sorry, Riza.

-Roy Mustang

Will you marry me?

---

"...In this holy matrimonial ceremony we bring together Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang..."

Roy absently tuned out the fat, old priest as a fuzzy, warm feeling the pits of his stomach slowly floated up to his rapidly, beating heart to settle as a hazy fog around his stupefied brain. He couldn't believe that he was actually standing there; at a church, in front of a cheesy priest and judge, holding her hand, the only one for him, in front of all these people, too. He knew he should feel ashamed for staring at her so openly, but gods, he didn't give a damn. She was so beautiful. Like always, her hair was pulled back, except this time, in an elegant French twist to hold up a sheer, white veil covering her simply done face. She looked up to steadily meet his gaze on. Her amber-red eyes sparkled with a happiness he'd rarely seen in their times together. Her cheeks had been dusted with pink, accenting her high cheekbones and pastel lips that curved into a gorgeous smile.

His clothed hand over hers tightened as he heard the priest ramble on. "Do you, Roy Mustang, agree to take Riza Hawkeye as your lawful wedded wife...?" Roy turned his head slightly, breaking eye contact with Riza to look out into the hushed crowd. He saw all his subordinated sitting within the first two rows; Breda, Farman, Fury, even Havoc with his new girlfriend... and Hughes sitting with Glacia, and a giggle Elysia perched on his knee. He turned his gaze to a bored looking Ed (Roy knew better than to believe that cheesy look. Any idiot could tell that Ed was waiting for the moment to scream 'I TOLD YOU SO!' to the entire crowd.) sitting with a very anxious looking Al, Maria Ross and Dennis. Roy saw more heads behind them, but he didn't care. He glanced back at Hughes and saw the married man slide him a cheerful wink along with a thumbs up. Suddenly, Roy felt so much more confident and turned back to the waiting Riza before he could read the words on Hughes' lips (Probably something along the lines of 'I told you so,' too, or 'This is why you so need a wife.'). He felt his own lips form a smile. "I do." He answered firmly, his hold on her hands tightening even more, as he took a tiny peek back in time to see Hughes stick his fingers into his mouth to let out a shrill wolf whistle.

Her face broke into the most beautiful grin he'd ever seen. He felt as though time stopped, just for them... And suddenly started again as the priest repeated the question for Riza. She turned from him to watch the priest, enraptured by his words. This is my moment. Roy felt her posture tell him.

"Do you, Riza Hawkeye, agree to take this man, Roy Mustang as your husband...?"

Slowly, she turned back to look at him, his beloved. Her face seemed to be radiating his and her happiness both. She opened her mouth to answer. "I..."

Suddenly, a terrified shriek came from the crowd. As they, along with everyone else turned to look over to see the problem, he felt her hand ripping out of his grasp to find the nonexistent holster and gun by the side of her pristine bride's dress.

Roy felt his blood go cold when he saw his nemesis slowly rise from the middle of the crowd. "Archer..." He heard a familiar, terrified voice say-- maybe it was his own.

"Die, Mustang!" The half-machine, half-man immediately started shooting. Too late, Roy could see every single bullet heading straight for him, as a white blur leapt in front of him.

"NOOO!!" A scream of anguish tore from his throat before he knew it. He collapsed with her dead weight. "Riza, no!" He yelled, shaking her limp shoulders with all his might. "Wake up! You can't do this to me!"

"Roy, Roy..." He felt a gentle hand fall onto his own arm as Hughes' voice reached his ears. Sobbing, he shook his head wildly, and looked up to see... Pride, the Fuhrer King Bradley's smiling face.

"AUGHHHH!!"

---

"Roy, Roy! Wake up!" Firm hands shook his shoulders, shaking him out of his dream. He opened his bleary eyes to see Riza looking down at him, obviously quite concerned, but well and alive.

"What's going on?" He quickly asked before she could ask him what was wrong.

"Oh." She turned away from him. "You fell asleep at your desk again, while working." She answered, her voice slightly detached sounding. Strange, she never acted like this.

He sat up in his seat, his back ramrod straight, feeling alarmed with her strange behavior. "Riza?" He tried to look past her back to see what she was doing. When realizing that he caught nothing, he stood up and slowly walked around the table to her. "Riza?" He asked again, this time letting a little more worry seep into his voice.

"Hmm?" She hummed, and turned around, a cup in each hand. "Coffee or tea?"

Slightly taken back, Roy absently answered, "Coffee" and reached for the coffee mug in her left hand. As he brought the rim up to his lips, he noticed the glittering ruby sparkling from her ring finger. "Hey," he exclaimed quietly. "You wore your ring today."

She looked at him over the rim of her own petite porcelain teacup. "Of course I did." She answered easily, amused. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Oh, I don't know..." He gave her a mischievous wink as he set his mug onto the table and took her teacup to set it down as well. She raised her eyebrow at him, plainly wondering what horrendous thoughts were going through his mind now. "Maybe you forgot to..." He took her hand and gently led her to the couch in the living room. "...Or you accidentally dropped it in the toilet."

Giving him a dramatic, exasperated sigh and an eye roll, she gracefully fell onto the couch beside him. Meanwhile, Roy let out a happy sigh as her head fell into the place in the crook between his neck and shoulder as his arms went around her shoulders. "Are you... happy, Riza?" He whispered softly, almost afraid of the answer, like always.

"Of course I am." She answered simply, either completely missing his uncertainty, or choosing to ignore it. "If I wasn't," she brought a slim, pale hand up to gently touch his cheek. "Then you'd know by yesterday... Or at least you'd have my gun pointing at your forehead by now." She added on, as an afterthought.

He chuckled lightly as she just smiled. The moment went, and Roy frowned. Something didn't feel right; there was a little thought at the back of his mind nagging him about it. Quickly, he pushed it away before it could ruin his nice evening. Gently, Roy reached for the silver chain that hung around Riza's neck. On it hung the silver-plaited locket that he had gotten her when they had first gotten serious. Slowly, with the utmost carefulness, he opened it.

She looked at him curiously, wondering what was going on still, in that strange and mysterious mind of his. "I love the pictures you put in there," she commented softly, carefully watching for any facial expression crossing his features.

He snorted in disbelief. "And I can't believe I actually stuck that in there," he retorted, looking at the image one last time before briskly snapping it shut again.

She wriggled around until she could look at him in the eye. "Well, you have to admit, Black Hayate looks really cute..." Roy shook his head. A few weeks back, Havoc had been assigned to a surveillance mission, to write up an observation on Roy. He'd found the log around the time of the Warehouse 13/B incident. The folder itself contained notes, journals, and pictures. Among the pictures, Roy discovered one of him attempting to feed Black Hayate, shrunk it, and cropped it so it in the photo pocket of the locket. Feeling it wasn't enough, he searched around until he found one of Riza playing with Black Hayate when she'd first taken him in.

Ah, good time, Roy felt his mouth curve into a smirk.

"So, if Black Hayate looked, then I must be pretty hot."

She just looked at him. Then her eyes lit up, as her lips curled into a playful smile. "No," she said in all seriousness. "You just look pretty stoned."

He just smiled and said nothing else, the nagging thought at the back of his mind still bothering him. He suddenly saw flashes of his dream again. Shuddering, he tightened his arms around her and drew her closer.

"What's wrong, Roy?" she looked at him, worried; the playful grin gone, now replaced by worried lines creased across her forehead.

"In my dream" he started softly. "We were getting married again. You, me, that old priest guy and everyone else." She nodded, her eyes staring intently into his own. Suddenly, he felt incredibly dumb for his fears. "Nothing," he shrugged. "It was just a dream."

"No," she said quietly, gripping his hand with hers. "Tell me," she nodded again, encouraging him. "I want to hear about it."

He swallowed hard. "Well," he plowed ahead. "We were in that one church again and doing the whole 'I do' thing again." He voice grew soft and Riza leaned in closer to hear him speak. "When it was your turn," he looked at her, biting his lip at the image in his mind. "Somehow, Archer happened to be there and started shooting at me." Roy's voice became more and more distant with each word. "But you... you jumped in front of me and took those bullets for me. I thought you died... then suddenly I saw King Bradley's face again just before I woke up." He looked down at her. She had an unreadable expression on her face. "Riza?" he gave her shoulder a tiny shake. She seemed to have been shaken out of her reverie. The woman shook her head and stood up, breaking out of Roy's hold, as if he hadn't just spilled something terrible to her. As she started walking off, Roy felt the nagging feeling get worse.

"Wait, Riza," he called, struggling to get up from the couch. "Where are you going?"

She turned back, looking quite surprised. "I have to go, Roy," she explained gently, while glancing up at the grandfather's clock next to the couch. "It's almost nine. You have to go, too."

"Wait, what?" Roy exclaimed, thoroughly confused, reaching out to hold onto her left hand. "What's going on?"

She just smiled sadly, and gently pulled her hand away. "Just remember, Roy," she said sadly. "You can keep dreaming, but reality won't change."

He turned to look at the grandfather's clock, to see what was so interesting. 8:59. The second hand reached the 11. Five seconds until nine.

Tick. Tick, tick, tick...

Is it possible? That all is a dream? A figment of my imagination... I'm crazy? Then where is reality?

...Tick.

BONG! BONG! BONG!

Roy jerked awake at his desk, his hand reaching out to solidly connect with the cuckoo clock on his desk. "Ow, damnit!" he cursed, pulling his stinging hand to his chest, biting his lip at the stinging sensation. When the pain slowly subsided, he frowned and carefully looked at his clock. 2100 hours.

"What... happened?" Roy mused out loud to himself. "Am I finally awake?" First glancing down at his cradled hand, he tentatively reached up for his face. Sure enough, there it was... the eye patch that he still wore, that would be his everlasting reminder of that one fateful night. It wasn't there in his dream, or dreams per se.

His frown deepened as he shook his head, attempting to clear his mind of such things. Even so, he kept thinking while he absentmindedly pulled out a file from his top desk drawer. What did that dream mean? Is that how things would've been if she lived? He stared fixedly at the work in his hands as he thought just as hard, not quite seeing.

"Hey private, I can almost hear the gears in your head turn." Roy's head jerked up to see his partner, Private Adrian Matthews, leaning nonchalantly against the doorway.

"Heh," Roy relaxed almost immediately, scratching at his head. "I was just... thinking."

"Like you always are," Adrian replied with an easy smile on his face. "Anyway," he quickly glanced down at his wristwatch. "It's about 9:30 right now. We've got to get out of here before the big boss comes and kicks us out," he said, referring to the general in charge of the building, known to be a very gruff grandfatherly figure. "You up for a late dinner?"

Roy eyed the documents in his hand. Suddenly they didn't as interesting as they had a minute ago. "Sure," she agreed, carelessly tossing the papers onto his desk. He stood up, stretching before walking to the door. As he started closing the door, Adrian stopped him, casually strolling down to Roy's desk.

"Roy," he called. "Is there a reason why your clock still says 9?"

His eyebrows shot up above his hairline. Feeling somewhat alarmed, he followed the other private over. "It was working earlier..." he hear himself say uncertainly. He watched as Adrian fiddled with a few switches.

"There!" And the clock started ticking again.

"Thank you." Roy said quietly, still feeling out of sorts by the clock. There was no way... Just no way. As he started turning away, he was once again distracted by Adrian's voice.

"Hey, what's this?" he turned back to see the other private point to his open drawer. He leaned over to see what it was... and gasped. His blood ran cold with recognition. How the hell...

Suddenly, Adrian turned back to Roy with a knowing look on his face. "For your girlfriend at home, eh?"

"Yeah..." Roy choked out, still staring at his open state alchemist watch with the locket and ring hanging out, and just one thought still going through his head. How the hell did it get there... "When I thought I..." Then he noticed Adrian looking at him with a puzzled expression. Roy shook his head again. "Never mind." He said softly. "You know what?" Adrian silently tilted his head. "Now would be a good time to get dinner." Roy suggested meaningfully.

As they headed out the office, Roy lingered by the doorway, still looking at the open drawer. He slowly closed the door shut, praying deep in his heart that it was just a mere hallucination that both he and his partner saw. Walking down the hallway, he shoved the image of silver watches and necklaces and rings out of his mind. That wedding was a dream. She was a dream. This must be a dream, too. He thought to himself. It'll go away after I wake up. Might as well stuff myself silly. But at the back of his mind, Roy wondered how he had become so good at denying the truth.

The next morning, Roy Mustang strolled into his office in a cheerful mood. Why? He didn't know. He comfortably settled into his seat and reached for the remaining documents on his desk that he needed to take care of. As he read through the report, he absentmindedly reached to open his top drawer for blank paper. Hw scowled to himself when it didn't budge. Locked? He never locked his desk.. must've been the big boss looking for something again and locking up for him as an extra precaution. Nevertheless, Roy reached into his pocket for his keys. When he found the respective key to the lock, he paused. Something was bothering him again, like a warning at the back of his mind, something he couldn't quite catch. Roy quickly shrugged it away, why ruin a perfectly good morning with something so trivial, and unlocked the drawer. He pulled the drawer open.

The key clottered to the ground and his breathing became quick and shallow as his heart beat rapidly. Suddenly, the previous night's events all came back to him; the dreams, the wedding, his broken clock... the watch and the chain with the locket and the ring. He took it all in as he numbly stared into the drawer, something glistening trailing down his face. And inside the drawer, plain as the light of day, a pile of smoky gray ashes swirling to form two very clear, intricate words...

I do.

-fin

A/N1: Part II of 'Ashes,' dedicated to luvinaoshi because I never posted this, rawr. I'm not exactly happy with this piece as it was written over a year ago (07302005-08112005 are the dates that I have written down) and I haven't beta'd or looked at it since. This will be the last thing I'm going to post at but you can still find me over at Livejournal if anyone is curious. I just like to thank everyone for the encouraging words and support. Thank you for stopping by to read this and anything else. I do read every single review (that I receive in my email, at least) and appreciate your kind words. Thank you.