Disclaimer: FMAB is not mine. All credit goes to where it should. More power to everyone who made FMA as successful as it is. :D

"YOU BITCH!" It was a cry of anger, marking a descent to despair and hopelessness. He could hear her yelling and screaming as shots were fired one after the other. Her voice was so frantic, so hysterical, it sounded like she was caught smack in the middle of resigning into Mustang's supposed fate and believing that he could not have been so simply killed by the likes of Lust. He bit down on his lip hard as he fought the urge to give in to his wounds. Panic did not suit Riza's usual calm, serious voice and her stern face. Desperately, he staggered to where the noises were coming from. He had to get there soon or else he'll be the one in mad hysteria.

Every step he took felt like his body was tearing apart. He could see the light of the open room from afar, but it seemed as if he couldn't close the distance. He balled his fists tightly, making blood seep out from his improvised transmutation circle. "Shit!" he cursed sharply, wincing as pain bloomed where Lust had stabbed him. "Wait for me Lieutenant, and I'll incinerate that bitch."

The shots stop coming and Mustang knows he'd better hasten the pace. It's when he sees Al blocking Lust's attack that he knows he had reached them in time. He snaps his fingers furiously, he doesn't need a second more to think. After all, he's done this before; he knows exactly how this will end. "As expected," he thinks as he hears Lust scream in agony, only the screams don't sound like Lust's. The flames burst in a wild explosion of fury as his eyes widen in shock and horror. It's not Lust he's burning but Riza and Lust is standing safely away, watching with an amused smirk. Suddenly, he finds himself in a frenzy of panic, trying to kill the flames to no avail. Instead, the fire grows even larger, consuming his closest ally as she screamed her throat raw, with Lust laughing victoriously in the background. Mustang's ears ring painfully at the sound of Riza's anguish, and all the more by how her screams were getting fainter and fainter with his futile attempts at stopping the flames, and transmuting water to kill the fire. "I don't understand! Nothing I do is working!" He reaches out to Riza, he'll pull her out of those embers no matter what, but the fire crawls up his arm and devours him whole.

Then, everything blacks out. "RIIIIIIZZAA!" He gropes for thin air, searching for her, and the tears cascade down his cheeks, realizing what he had just done. "RIIIIIZZA! I- I don't understand.. RIIZZAAA!" A sudden flash of blinding light paralyzes him. Again, he sees the light of the room from afar, and he hears her screaming over and over again. With each scream, he feels the crazy throbbing of his heart. "Stop! Please!" he hears her scream out."Roy! Stop!" With that, a fire rages within him and his chest explodes. Just as he collapses into the darkness, he hears another familiar voice, his own. "I can't. I'm sorry.."

And Then I Wake Up

He wakes up drenched in sweat, clutching his chest. "1.. 2... 3..." He counts slowly as he tries to catch his breath. He's been having these nightmares recently, and every night they become more painful to be trapped in. Mustang can't stop the tears from coming, this is the fifth time this week that he's had to relive his battles, only everything's so much more twisted and bizarre. In the first ones he had, he and Riza were fighting Envy. He'd boil off the liquids of Envy's eyes and reduce him to ashes and he's won, but he blinks his eyes close for a moment and they open to find Envy mocking him and laughing at him with his lieutenant's burnt corpse lying at his feet. Sometimes, he's scorching Lust, and in the final scenes of their battle, just when he's supposed to have beaten her, her ultimate spear slices through his flames and actually reaches him. As he falls to his death, he finds that the spear is connected to Riza and she's flashing him the most vicious of smiles.

He lies back down and stares at the ceiling. His room is eerily quiet, save for the ticking of the small clock on his nightstand. 2:24. Everyone else would be asleep at this hour, even she would be. At least, he hopes she would be. He could tell something was up from the way she sounded on the phone earlier, even if she tried to hide it. He knows her well enough. The fact that she couldn't tell him what was bothering her only worried him more. All their lives hung by loose threads, especially with her being Wrath's assistant now, he fears she faced more threat than anyone. His arm wanders to the empty side of his bed and he imagines her lying there. he imagines her still form, the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest, her simple features, golden hair sprawled on milky skin and blue bedsheets. Lying asleep as he pictured her, she was not the deadly sniper, not the sharp eyes of the hawk that guarded and watched closely, and she too could be fragile.

"I've never r-really done this before." His lips curled into a small smile.

A lot of things have changed since he first met Riza Hawkeye. Her hair, for example, had not been as long and though there had always been some sadness in her eyes, Mustang would never had expected back then, that those chocolate eyes would see the horror of murder and warfare. They were both much younger then, back in the years when he was still an amateur alchemist, an apprentice of Riza's father. He spent most of his days at their house, learning from the original Flame alchemist the basics of alchemy, and she'd bring sandwiches in the afternoon, and meals at dinner, and coffee late at night when his lessons with Berthold Hawkeye stretched into the wee hours of the morning. Every night when he'd leave, she'd see him out the door, giving him a courteous nod and a simple 'See you again tomorrow'.

Even then, she was always quiet and collected. They never really had long conversations with each other and sometimes, they'd find themselves locking eyes with one another, only to quickly turn their heads to some other direction, ashamed that they'd been caught staring by the other person. Sometimes, when she handed sandwiches, his fingers would lightly brush against hers, and he'd feign nonchalance at the accidental skin contact. Less frequently, it would be the other way around.

When Riza's father dies, she's left alone, with no friends and family, and Mustang realized that in the recent years, she had little interaction would anyone else aside from Mustang and her father, what with the older man slowly slipping into the mania and obsession over his research. "How lonely it must have been.." he remembers thinking. How long had she been stuck in that house anyway? He was afraid to ask. It's when she shows him the secrets of Berthold's research that he discovers how terrible things must have been for her. A young girl could not have so easily told her father she didn't want to bear such heavy a burden and tattooing it must have been a painful experience, especially with how intricate the details were.

That night, he was more surprised, not by the vast untold secrets of flame alchemy that presented itself before him, but by her courage and strength, the trust she was ready to give him and the risk she was willing to take. It didn't seem like it was only flame alchemy she was ready to give to him. Mustang walked up to her slowly, with the sound of each footstep echoing in the room. He picked up her blouse and set it over her shoulders, resisting the temptation of touching her bare skin. "Are you sure?" he asked, himself uncertain of whether or not he was worthy of what she was offering him. She gave him a small nod in reply. "I've never r-really done this before.." he tried to say with a straight tone but it still came out shaky and nervous. With her back still turned to him, she laughed, a pleasant thing to hear for the first time, but it's clear that she too lacked the experience. "You'd think someone like you would know about these things," she joked hesitantly.

At first, she flinched at his touch, as he ran his hand down her neck to her shoulders, but his hand was so warm and with her torso exposed, she felt cold. Slowly and ever gently, he traced the outline of her body to her waist and brought his hand up her skirt, briefly touching her inner thigh. He stopped, feeling the haphazard beating of his heart. "God, I'm so nervous," he whispered. "We barely know each other... and your father just died.." he rambled. "What if tomorrow you-" In an instant, she turned around, and their lips meet in a chaste first kiss. They stared into each other's eyes as their lips locked in place, unmoving. His dark eyes were wide in shock at how sudden it happened, but hers were slightly more confident, more sure.

"My name is Riza Hawkeye. I like buttered toasts and afternoon sandwiches. Mother always made some when she was still alive. I don't like the smell of flowers; they remind me of her funeral. But I like the smell of rain, and the feeling of the first few drops falling on your skin.. and I like you. I'm really nervous too, and I'm scared but I like you, okay?"

"R-Roy Mustang. I really did mean what I said.. I've had that ambition since I was young. See, my parents died when I was still young. Aunt Chris took me in."

Staring into her warm chocolate eyes and feeling her breasts against his chest, he kissed her, more passionately this time, leading the way. They lay on the small couch, both half-asleep and nearly breathless, as he silently watched her with tired sleepy eyes. "You know, I've seen you in my dreams often," he murmured and hoped it didn't sound creepy."Hhm.. And what am I doing there?" He stared at her gentle features, eyes closed behind her golden bangs.

Mustang falls asleep.

"Please set me free from what my father has burdened me with.."

She bites her lips hard. "Please burn it all off. No matter what happens, no matter what I do and no matter how hard I plead with you, you must burn it," she says through gritted teeth. Mustang clenches his fists tightly. "Burn it." He does as he's told, as he promised. "You have to know, if you want me to do this, I'll have to make it burn deep," he tells her, hoping it would make her change her mind. She only replies with a nod. "Prepare, then. This will hurt." It sounded like the words were directed to himself. With a snap of his fingers, flames spark into life on her back, burning and scorching her flesh as she screamed senseless, clawed at her arms and tugged at her hair. The pain is immeasurable, far worse than either of them could have expected. Those are the flames that killed thousands of Ishvalan men, women and children after all. Tears fall down her cheeks like waterfalls as she screamed and screamed."Stop! Please!" He could not fight back his own tears. "Roy! Stop!" Through sobs and screams she yelled out, while her back bubbled and singed and blistered, bloody and ravaged.

"Stop!"

"Please!"

"STOP!"

Mustang lets out a scream of his own. "I can't. I'm sorry."

His eyes shoot open. 4:28. He's clutching the bedsheets tightly and breathing heavily, trying hard to catch his breath and calm his exploding chest. He cries. Since that day, he's sworn he'll never let anyone lay so much as a finger on her. The pain and damage he had caused her had been more than enough. She did not deserve to go through any more suffering. And now, with the threat of homunculi and the whole upper echelon of the military conspiring against the very people they swore to protect, he fears he might not be able to fulfil his promise.

"You know, I've seen you in my dreams often."

"Hhm.. And what am I doing there?"

"You're handing me a plate of sandwiches, a mug of coffee and we're talking. You're telling me something about the rain. You're so passionate. I hear my voice, talking to you, something about the rain. And then.. I wake up."

AN: Wow. It has been forever since I last wrote a fic. And this is my first time writing for Full Metal Alchemist. I've only recently finished watching the 2009 series and I swear, everything is just perfect. I can't fangirl enough over how well-written and well-thought-about everything was in the story. Honestly, it's my top pick for number1 anime ever. Anyway, I hope I haven't become too rusty and I've managed to unearth some of my writing tricks from nearly two years ago. Sorry if they're a bit ooc at some parts, I just thought they were much different when they were younger, with more of the usual naiv-ity and idealism of young children. Also, I know it's weird I use Hawkeye's first name and Roy's last but meh I was halfway through when I realized I wasn't naming consistently XD If you liked this, please please leave a comment, it would really mean much to me. So yup there's that. Hope you enjoyed reading :))) 3