East City, August 23rd, 1905

Life always seemed to unravel slowly. Both of her parents' illnesses. Her father's slow descent into madness. And now the letters. Her time with Roy had been a long goodbye, and it had only exacerbated her heartbreak when he really left.

The letters seemed like an amends at patching up the time they had wasted waiting for it to run out, too frightened of the rapidly approaching future to do everything they meant. Words filling in the minutiae of their respective lives filled Riza's time outside her new job as a waitress in East City. It wasn't much, but it kept food on the table while she waited for the Academy's term to start. Roy always had a sympathetic word for her when she dealt with rude customers, but lately, his letters had grown farther apart.

She knew he was busy with his new duties as a major, but when she had asked about his personal life, he spoke only of his fake dates and visits home. His reputation was growing, even if it was overshadowed by his being the youngest State Alchemist in history. When he had gotten the news, He had sent a letter right away, and a large part of his pay, which Riza had returned to him.

But now, at the end of August, she hadn't had a letter in two weeks. They had slowed from the original almost daily letters they had exchanged at the beginning, but not hearing from Roy at all troubled her. Surely he knew she wouldn't be starting at the Academy for another week.

She would have written to remind him of that if she hadn't seen the headline of the newspaper the next morning. Riots in Central. People were protesting the War in Ishval and the military had been brought in. With a sense of dread bubbling in her stomach, Riza purchased a copy and read it on her lunch break.

She had to go home early, complaining of an upset stomach. It was true, technically. When firing guns into the crowd hadn't deterred anyone, a State Alchemist had been brought in. Just thinking about it now made Riza want to throw up. She tossed the newspaper on the fire, along with the letter she had begun the night before.

Orders were orders, and no one had been killed, but the knowledge that Roy-her Roy, the kind and determined boy she had loved so fiercely-had sent people to the hospital made her furious. But as she looked at the soot on her hands from the fire she had started, the guilt sunk in. This time, she couldn't help it. Though she hadn't thrown up since she had had had a stomach bug as a little girl, she sent her lunch into the fire as well.

Central, August 24th, 1905

Roy swirled what remained of his bourbon around in the bottle. Just over a third left. He'd have to buy more after work tomorrow. Or maybe he wouldn't go to work at all, depending on the hangover. He'd call in sick and sound the part.

Not even bothering with a glass, he raised the bottle to his lips and drank. When he slammed it down on his desk, only a fourth remained. The force of the glass against the wood knocked the two frames off his desk. He didn't feel the effects of the alcohol yet, and he bent down to retrieve the frames. The first sent him into the bottle again. It was from the academy—Maes Hughes with his arms around both Roy and Heathcliff Erbe. Erbe. What had become of him? He hadn't been a part of yesterday's protest that Roy had seen. He was grateful if it meant his former friend was safe, but all the same, if he had been there, would Roy have had the courage to refuse his orders? At least he had been able to talk his way out of trouble for only injuring a small handful of the people he had been called in to stop. It sounded like his superiors had wanted deaths, but even the gunmen hadn't accomplished that. The people who had been sent to the hospital were in stable condition.

That, he realized, was the only reason he wasn't too upset by the depleted stock of whiskey. If he'd seriously harmed or-god forbid-killed someone, nothing would have stopped him from drinking an entire bottle.

The portion he had drunk had begun to settle over him: a heavy blanket to hide his troubles. He struggled to pick up the second photograph, taking another drink while he knelt on the floor beside it. When he realized what picture this was, he finished the bottle, leaving it on the floor as he concentrated what little coordination he had left on getting the picture safely back on the desk.

He wiped tears from his eyes, though there were none—crying was a luxury he hadn't afforded himself lately—and whispered the name of the girl who stood beside him in the photograph, back when smiling had come easy.

Shit. Riza. He had forgotten all about writing her in the turmoil that had hit his desk lately. And now, what was he supposed to say to her? She had trusted him, and he had fucked it all to hell yesterday. It was all over the papers, too. She would know. At least it would drive her away from the military before it was too late for her, the way it was for him. Maybe he would write a letter begging her to get as far away from this mess as she could. Maybe when he could hold a pen again. Or when he felt less tired. Now he felt like he could sleep for a century, and by then, Riza would have forgotten all about him and found some better life.

Carefully, he pulled himself up, unsteady on his feet the whole way to the couch. He still hadn't bought a bed. Was that because of her? He could remember saying he wanted to wait until she moved to Central so they could break it in together, but that had been a different life, hadn't it? Before he had known that he had dragged her into this mess too.

He fell rather than sat on the couch and pulled a blanket over himself, not particularly bothered by the fact that his bare feet stuck out and that it spilled into a large pile on the floor. Turning it the right way would be too much trouble and he'd already caused enough of that.

He should have run away with her. That much was clear now, but even as his mind grew fuzzier, he knew it was a fool's dream now. No, it was best to push her away as much as he could, even if she would always be there, wedged into his heart—his very soul, if he even had such a thing anymore. It would take more than liquor to drive a love like that out of him.

But as he drifted off to sleep, he knew he would never have the guts to write to her again sober, and he resigned to keep her presence in his mind confined to the photograph on his desk and the voice of his conscience when he followed unquestioningly the orders of the State. He had never had faith in any religion, but if there was any kind of afterlife at all, it was Riza Hawkeye's retribution he feared far more than that of a god he'd never believed in.

In the morning, the splitting pain in his head and the crack in the glass across the necks of his younger self and the girl he hated himself for betraying, for loving, sent him back to the couch without even bothering to call Headquarters to inform them that he would be out sick. He needed one more day to miss her.

I can't believe I'm finally done with this fic. It's been such a huge part of my life for so long, and I'm going to miss writing and updating it. School and life have been a lot harder lately, but I want to keep writing, so I might start up another multichapter Royai fic over the summer. Until then, though, I'd like to thank hawkeyedriza for betaing the first half and all of you for staying with me and reading and reviewing and sending messages. I couldn't have done it without you guys