Theme #19 – Time Spent Apart

Reunion

He left a year later.

There had been the internal uprising, the Homunculi, the Ishballans, the Fuhrer… Fuhrer Bradley had been the beginning of the end. After Riza had found Roy crumpled in a heap outside of Bradley's burning mansion, all she'd been able to feel was this empty chasm in her stomach. The only thought in her mind was that she had lost her general, and that was unacceptable.

He recovered slowly but surely, but his left eye was gone, and he always kept the most unnoticeable of limps. He had sworn off alchemy, and it was as if the fire in him had blown out, as well. At first, she was able to coax smiles out of him, and they talked often, but never of what had happened. He wouldn't let himself think back on the past ten years of his life, except for when it concerned the Elrics directly. He reminisced about them all the time, and when he was on leave, he often traveled to Risembool to stay with the Rockbells and visit Al. The boy didn't remember him, but they became fast friends.

He never said it, but Riza could tell that Roy thought about Ed a lot.

The little blonde time-bomb had disappeared inexplicably. No one had any idea where he could be, and Riza always wondered. So did Roy. She could tell he was thinking about Ed, because he would smirk and bring up something that had happened back when he still saw the world with both his eyes. Most people thought that Full Metal had died during the uprising, but Roy never believed it, and said it on several occasions.

Then, the Flame went out late and didn't come in to work the next morning. She called his government-funded apartment seven times, but he never answered. That night she drove over with Falman and found him unconscious in the middle of his floor, sweaty and obviously drunk. His eyepatch was missing, the burn scars across his eye standing out starkly against his pale skin.

Two days later, he resigned his position and asked to be re-enlisted. All of his subordinates tried, but none of them could dissuade him from such a ridiculous decision.

"What are you doing, General?" demanded Riza, glaring at Roy from across the office. He was ignoring her gaze as he packed his suitcase full of supplies.

"I'm quitting, Hawkeye," he said in a soft, indifferent voice that wasn't his.

"Quitting," Riza repeated.

"Quitting. I've been dispatched to the Eastern border as a watchman."

"After all these years, you're going to give up? You're just going to throw away all you've done and start at the bottom of the ladder again? After all the work, after all the things we've been through – that's it?"

He turned and looked at her. There was a dark smudge of exhaustion beneath his visible eye, and his face was so blank that she wanted to shake him or hit him or kick him…do something to make his expression change.

"That's it," he whispered.

"Why?"

"Because I'm a lousy, no-good fake." He shut his suitcase and turned to the window. The sunlight threw a soft golden glow on his features. "All these years, I fought everyone including myself in an attempt to reach the top, because I believed that by doing so, I could make things better."

"That's right!" Riza shouted, not even trying to keep her voice down any more. "You were going to make things better! And I believed you! I believed in you and your dream, I fought for you – I gave away everything for you, because I believed! Don't you understand what you're doing? Do you realize all the people you're letting down? Me, all of your men, Major Armstrong, Ed and Al…you're even letting Hughes down! He died for this dream of yours, Mustang! He died for you! And you'd let him down?"

The only thing that changed about his face was that the lines deepened and his gaze dropped. "But tell me, Hawkeye, did I make anything better? Did I change anything at all? I'm a failure. I realized something three days ago. All those dreams – they were for me. I wasn't doing any of that for anyone other than myself. I wasn't fighting for the people, for the ones that I killed, for Maes…I wasn't even fighting for you. I was being the same selfish, arrogant wretch that I'd always been, and I was just trying to prove to myself that I could do better."

Riza could feel the tears rolling gently down her cheeks, and she couldn't stop them. "You're lying, sir," she said in a hoarse whisper. "You're a liar."

He walked up to her, the suitcase in hand. There was a small, sad smile on his lips and his eyebrow was furrowed low over his eye, which was bright as if he were about to cry, too. He lifted a hand to her face and gently wiped the tears from her right cheek. "Maybe I am. But it doesn't matter anymore." He started to leave, then turned back and saluted. "You're my superior now, by the way. Good day, Lieutenant Hawkeye."

She didn't see him after that. No one ever heard from him – no phone calls, no letters, no word from anyone. He had taken a permanent position at a tiny, hard-to-find border post, and had apparently gone into hiding. She didn't know if she missed him or hated him; perhaps it was both.

And then there was trouble again, and with trouble came the Flame. He strode in amongst the gunfire and noise, cool as he had always been, and began throwing orders around as if it were the only thing he'd been born to do. She wasn't surprised when the men jumped to obey, despite the fact that he was technically their subordinate. He was their General again, and all they wanted was to do his bidding.

They were Mustang's men once more.

Though Riza had never been filled with such joy and shock and relief at one time as she was now, she had never been one to showcase her emotions. All that she could say was, "We've been waiting for you, sir."

He just gave her one of his knowing smirks and went on being the general that he was. They didn't need words, and it was as if they'd never even been apart to begin with.