Author's Note: Written quite a while ago, but I just thought I'd share. Enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own.

Distance

"No matter how hard you struggle to imprint yourself into this world, we're all the same in the end..."

December 14th, 1901 – Eastern Amestrian Countryside

Winter hits the Hawkeye household like a battering ram.

They're sitting in front of the fireplace, huddled under swathes of blankets to keep out the chill, to keep out the sound of wind and snow rattling violently against the window as if trying to shatter the glass. The only space heater, rusty and severely underused, is currently residing in the bedroom upstairs, keeping her perpetually-ill father company as he sits in bed, so the fire flickering in front of them is the only way to keep feasibly warm.

Roy watches as Riza sighs and brings the mug of tea to her lips. Silence rings in his ears.

It has taken a grand total of seven months for the house to settle into a fairly reasonable sense of normality. When Roy Mustang had arrived at Berthold Hawkeye's doorstep, he hadn't realized that the professor, as brilliantly eccentric as his tiny publications had made him sound, would have had any family living with him at all, much less a daughter, but it was indeed a daughter who had opened the door for him that very first day, albeit one small and quiet and well-rehearsed in being invisible. She has never attempted to speak to him – the only words he has ever heard from her are brief and monosyllabic – and, in those scattered moments of interaction between them, all that Roy can discern about her is that her eyes are bright and ocher – and frighteningly, chillingly fierce.

He refuses to admit that someone so tiny could terrify him so damn much.

"Mr. Mustang, you're staring." Her voice, cold and flat, hardened with years of maturity, startles him out of his reverie, and he jolts, alarmed. Somehow, the idea that her sideways glance is more of a glare doesn't seem too far from the truth.

He mumbles a half-coherent apology, but the dancing shadows on her cheekbones soon draw his eyes back to her face. She has a nice face, Roy decides, with a strong jaw and firm lips eternally pulled into that emotionless, unreadable expression, and, if her hair wasn't so short – even shorter than some of the boys in the neighborhood – he might even consider her pretty (of course, not as pretty as the girl who works in the flower shop, but alas). Somehow, his eyes keep darting back to the fire flickering in her eyes, reflecting every shade of golden in bright, tiny flecks mesmerizingly, almost... prettily.

"Riza, what do you like to do?" he blurts suddenly. When her gaze flits to meet his, Roy balks and blanches.

Forget pretty. Her eyes are cold and intimidating and frightening as ever.

But Riza holds her stare longer than usual, and he can feel his stomach twisting nervously, writhing under her gaze. Some part of him actually wants to hear her answer, for whatever reason, but the longer she looks, the more he thinks she is going to murder him, the more he thinks he sees something notably dangerous brewing in the depths of her eyes.

He gulps. The spell breaks. Riza turns away with a sigh, nudging the book on her lap.

"I like to read," she says simply. Roy waits for more – this is the most they've spoken, ever – but she's fallen silent again.

He doesn't know a single thing about her.

March 22nd, 1905 – Eastern Amestrian Countryside

Somewhere between awkward adolescence and his disappearance into the military academy, Riza's become a woman – now, in every sense of the word.

Their shoes crunch along on the cobblestoned sidewalk – her dress shoes and his military-issued boots – both staring at the ground, unspeaking they walk. Somewhere in the distance, the thin sound of a train whistle cuts though the sun and brisk spring breeze.

Roy clears his throat awkwardly, peeking at her out of the corner of his eye. They've long since gotten along, but, ever since the funeral, something's hung between them like a thin veil, faint and indiscernible until it brushes against their shoulders with the wind of the slightest breath.

They both know what it is.

"Remember to call on me if anything happens." His voice is hoarse, battered by the silence. It's still hard to look at her and not see the ghost of the fifteen-year-old girl of whom he'd eventually felt obligated to take care – although it was always the other way around.

"Mmm." They continue walking. The gate to the train station is coming into view.

"You should get an apartment here. That house is too big for you to live in by yourself."

She replies, "I know," but there is a hint of sadness in her voice. Guilt twists in his stomach.

"I really am sorry about your father," he blurts, feeling like a helpless idiot.

"It's fine, Mr. Mustang. He's been ill for a long time."

Mr. Mustang. She'd only just begun calling him Roy before he left for the academy...

"Your train leaves at ten-oh-five," she says quietly, and, from above them, a clock begins booming to mark the hour. They've stopped in front of the station now, and Riza is holding out a single gray ticket for him; he takes it without a word. On the street beside them, a truck full of blue military uniforms clatters past, the rattle of guns seemingly out of place in such a quiet place as the countryside.

Then again, the uprisings in Ishval aren't too far away.

They're stalling. There are a million things he wants to say to her – he's hovering between, "Take care of yourself," and, "Be careful."

"Thank you," he says finally.

Riza twitches, almost imperceptibly, but he sees her crossed arms jerk tighter around her waist. To her back. Where the tattoo is. For a split second, the awkwardness of being in a room alone with her, her hands over her bare chest as he leans in, perhaps too close, to study the intricate red design that stains her skin, sears hot across his face.

"My father's secrets," she whispers after the silence. When she looks up to meet his gaze, her eyes are ardent, burning. "I trust you."

Roy swallows. "Thank you," he says again, earnestly now. "It's because of you-"

The train whistles again, much closer now, cutting him off. They've gone back to looking at the ground now.

"Good luck on your State Alchemy Exam," Riza says softly. When he looks up, she's already begun to walk away.

August 3rd, 1908 – Ishval

They're supposed to be used to the sun, the heat, the metallic smell of blood.

Of course, neither of them are.

They've been sitting, panting, in the meager shade of a wall half crumbled away, listening to the faint sounds of explosions and gunfire, for what's seemed like an eternity, but it's never been enough, and it will never be enough. Her rifle is by her side, carefully leaning against the concrete, and, in the pauses between screams and the rumble of falling buildings, the only sound between them is the light clink of cheap silverware against tin cans.

Roy's always known how bad soldier rations are. They taste even worse with the dry flavor of sand in his mouth.

All of a sudden, Riza – Private Hawkeye – rises, dropping the tin and her spoon, and stumbles to the end of the wall, where the thin shade breaks into harsh sunlight. She drops to her knees, and Roy flinches as he hears the wet sound of her heaving the contents of her stomach back up onto the sand. When she returns, she is wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, frowning apologetically.

"Sorry," she mumbles, as if proper vomiting etiquette is required on the battlefield. The food in her tin lies dumped, spoiled, on the ground, so Roy shrugs and gestures towards his half-filled tin. She looks like she is going to refuse, pride hardened in her eyes like daggers, but human needs always did come before feelings, and the thin growl that escapes her stomach gives her away.

Riza sighs and rejoins him on the ground, taking the tin.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

They lean back against the wall, then, worn and dirty and soaked in the Ishvalan sun. From far off, another round of gunfire cues another round of high-pitched screams. A little closer, a child's cries slice the dead air like the shards of broken glass scattered into the sand. A single gunshot later and the cries break off into silence.

Roy sees her flinch out of the corner or his eye. When she sets the tin down carefully, she seems calm enough, but then her fists move to clench in her lap, the skin over her knuckles stretched and white.

Her eyes are hollow, tortured.

"Why are you here?" He means it as a simple question – Why did she have to follow him onto the battlefield, of all places? – but it sounds more like an accusation. Riza sighs and closes her eyes against the coolness of the concrete behind her.

"I don't know." She swallows, jerks slightly at the sound of another explosion on the other side of the city. "Not anymore."

When Roy turns to look at her, she's leaning back, contemplating the sky.

"When I entered the military academy, I thought I would be helping the people," she says quietly, and his heart twists at how miserable she sounds. Something in him wants to comfort her, like he'd tried to do when they were younger – when the stench of death and decay hadn't yet had the chance to seep into their nightmares – and his hand unconsciously twitches to her shoulder. She shouldn't have blood on her hands; her eyes shouldn't be the eyes of a killer.

But they are, and their life is massacre in the Ishval Civil War.

The battlefield is no place for comfort.

The sunlight is starting to break into her face. Riza barely squints. "Why are soldiers killing citizens when they should be protecting them instead?"

The broken look in her eyes scares him more than anything he's ever seen.

March 30th, 1909 – East City

She hisses through her teeth when the iodine-soaked swab touches her skin.

"Sorry, sorry!" Roy apologizes, flinching, throwing his hands up as if caught for some kind of crime.

Hawkeye's – Riza's – jaw is tight, from what he can see. The muscles on her back are tensed, the raw skin over them stretched taut.

"Just get it done, damn it," she grits. "If you apologize to me one more time, I'll shoot you through the head." He sighs at her audacity and presses the swab to the pink burn again. A shudder rips through her body, but, otherwise, Hawkeye shows no sign of recognition.

When Roy finishes with the iodine and starts with the dressing, their mutual sigh of relief is loud in the empty room.

Every day, always in silence. She's never asked him for help, but he's come every day nonetheless, armed with a bag of first aid supplies and a limited knowledge of burn treatment. (After all, the Flame Alchemist isn't used to healing the wounds he creates.) He's heard rumors that her unit is preparing to leave for Central in a few days, and his stomach twists with the thought of her trying to reach the scars on her back herself.

He needs her help, though, with wrapping the bandages. She doesn't seem as irked as he is by the fact that they are sitting on the edge of a bed with her shirt strewn on the sheets, absolutely no one around to watch them in the empty room, but, then again, Hawkeye's as good at keeping her feelings hidden as keeping her weapons concealed. When she shifts, he sees the faint glint of a gun strapped to her calf. She's wearing pajama pants, now, too. (And only pajama pants, his mind reminds him crudely.)

"Major," she says quietly, and he snaps out of his thoughts to see her calloused hand reaching over her shoulder. "The bandage." Heat burns in his cheeks, and Roy clumsily shoves the edge of the white binding into her hand. They continue wrapping in awkward silence.

Hawkeye sighs when he finishes. He's already started towards the door, dumping the medical equipment into the bag as he goes, but the sound of the bed creaking and bare feet on the wooden floor stops him.

"Thank you." Her voice is quiet, meek, almost. It's the first time she's thanked him since he's started coming. Roy swallows.

"It's the least I could do," he whispers. He turns to face her carefully, but her shirt is already on and half-buttoned. The silence beats like a drum in his ears. "I..." The air feels hot and heavy in his throat. "I'm sorry."

She hadn't made a noise when he burned it, so quiet and still that when he finished, he'd been afraid she was dead. He knows it'll leave a scar – he knows he's scarred her for the rest of her life – but the first time she'd seen the remnants of the tattoo on her back through the reflection in the mirror, the first time she saw the secrets of her father's alchemy fade into scattered patches of pink, raw burns, she'd smiled sadly and thanked him. Her smile had almost broken his heart.

"Your father's secrets..." He stares at the ground, gritting his teeth, but she doesn't interrupt. In the end, all he can do is sigh, frustrated beyond belief. "You shouldn't have trusted me. I've killed so many people."

"As did I." The gentleness in her voice makes him look up, and she is staring at him with a solemn expression, her eyes hard. "And we'll carry the burden for the rest of our lives. The only choice we have now is whether we'll crawl under the weight or continue with our heads held high."

Her words writhe in his chest. He remembers the gun at his bedside table, those long nights of staring at it, contemplating.

Suddenly, Hawkeye seems so much older than merely just another young woman, than the quiet girl taking care of her father in that old, empty house it seems he's always known.

She is a soldier now. The war in Ishval has killed her.

The click of the safety being pulled on a gun alarms him, tears him out of his thoughts, and his hand is halfway to his pockets for his gloves before he realizes that she is the one pointing a pistol at him. Her face is set in that same stern expression she's always worn, but, beneath the sense of familiarity in her eyes, the sense that assures him that this Hawkeye is still Riza, he knows she's tired and sad and dead.

That sense of familiarity flashes dangerously as she levels her hand, pointing the gun right at his head.

"I told you I'd shoot you if you apologized again, didn't I?"

Roy wastes no time in scrambling for his life.

September 9th, 1910 – East City

Complete and utter chaos is really the only way to describe it.

"Lieutenant, our train to Resembool leaves in ten minutes." Somewhere amongst the scattered papers and spilled ink, Hawkeye's voice, firm and ever-present, finds him harassed as ever.

"Damn those higher-ups," he grits, scribbling his signature on sheet after sheet like a mad person. (He misses the dotted line most of the time.) "Giving the most pointless, useless paperwork-"

"You can't blame anyone but yourself that you procrastinated, sir," Hawkeye says disapprovingly. Roy spares just a second to glower at her – she's standing in front of his desk by now, her coat slung over her arm – before focusing his glare again on the mess in front of him.

"...to the new officers." He splays the next page with ink, although he feels more like slipping on his gloves and torching it into ash. He's only been in Eastern Command Headquarters for a month, but it seems like he's had more work piled on his desk than all of the generals in Central put together.

He hears Hawkeye sigh, and, suddenly, half of the precariously-balanced tower of folders in front of his face vanishes. Something hurls itself at his face at a terrifying speed; it isn't until the button hits him squarely on the forehead that he realizes that it is his coat.

"I'll take care of these when we get back," he hears her say curtly. When he peeks over the edge of the coat, she's already taken the papers to her desk. "As of now, we have exactly seven minutes and fourteen seconds to get to the station. Sir." At the end, she turns around to glare at him. He's far too relieved to be getting out of the office to arrange his face into anything but his shit-eating grin.

They leave together in silence. It's still summer, but the air seems brisker than usual, whipping through the bright sunshine as steady as the sound of their boots clacking on the pavement. The sounds of cars rattling past, of other footsteps and laughter and a bell ringing somewhere in the distance, fill the space between them, but it still seems familiar, comfortable.

Hawkeye's been a constant at his side, as he feels she's always been.

"Will you follow me?"

"If that is your wish, then even into hell."

He turns to her, and there's single star on her epaulette: Second Lieutenant. She's promised to support him until he reaches the top, until he fulfills the naïve dream he'd revealed to her that cold winter morning after her father's funeral.

She's promised to support him. To protect him.

To give her life for him.

Something about that... something about that makes his stomach twist in the most horrifically excruciating way. Why her? How has it come to this again?

Why does it seem like he'll never be strong enough to keep her out of the line of fire?

"Sir, you're staring." Her voice, stern and business-like as ever, breaks into his reverie, and Roy almost trips over his own feet.

"R-right, sorry." He hopes his face isn't red. If it is, he hopes she doesn't notice.

The theory – the theory that's become much less of a theory, now, and more of a fact – is becoming painfully clear, and it suddenly seems he's been sidestepping the truth for far too long. It's like an equation, he thinks to himself, and when he brings together the warmth in her sideways smile and the thousands of colors in her eyes and the sound of her voice in his head when he's trying to sleep, he knows he'll come to the conclusion he's been purposely avoiding since she's reappeared in his life – again, and again, and again.

But his hands are bloodied – their hands are bloodied – with sins that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Such is the life of an Amestrian soldier.

The sun re-emerges from behind the clouds, then, and the light weaves into her hair, alights on her skin until it glows, sparks with the fierceness in her deep, golden eyes. Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye – his childhood friend, his comrade, his subordinate.

They walk, side-by-side, almost touching, closer than they've ever been.

She's never felt so far away.

"... the thing you desire most is something you'll never get."