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Time could be a funny thing.
There were times an hour could feel like a lifetime. The kind of hour spent sitting at desk on a Friday night, staring at form OS-8081 or 8082, pen in hand and ready to sign a new office supplies order that could never wait until Monday.
God forbid Central HQ run out of staplers over the weekend.
Roy had lived through so many of these endless hours, he sometimes wondered if it made him older than he actually was. It certainly explained the recent appearance of a stubborn grey hair, so inconveniently placed at the very top of his head.
Then there were times an entire week could feel like a split second. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, how-did-we-get-here, kind of week that somehow leads to the rest of your life but leaves no memory behind - just the lingering feeling that you didn’t fully get the gist of the story, yet here you are on the other side of it.
A week ago, Roy was discharged from the military hospital having fully recovered his eyesight.
A miracle, some had said.
A necessary sacrifice, he had thought.
His hands had not yet regained full mobility but the doctors insisted that they eventually would. Gaining back his dexterity, however, would be a long and painful process. That much was made clear. Soon there would be quite a few of those endless hours to look forward to, spent rhythmically squeezing a rubber ball and relearning how to hold a pen. How to hold a fork. How to button up his shirt by himself.
Under normal circumstances, he should have stayed in the hospital for another few days under the care of doctors and nurses who would keep an eye on his wounds.
The circumstances were anything but normal, unfortunately. Central was a disaster zone, entire buildings were leveled to the ground and the body count kept increasing every day. The wounded and sick were starting to outnumber the healthy and there was not telling how much longer it would last.
In short, the hospital had needed his bed. His condition was not critical and the space could be put to better use. He had left promising a week of bed rest, of taking it easy and getting a nurse to change his bandages daily.
Promise quickly forgotten, all he had done was put on a uniform and get back to work.
The week had passed quickly. Too quickly, between overseeing disaster relief efforts and barking orders at overwhelmed, understaffed military personnel who for the most part were too young to have known anything but peace. There was a government to rebuild, damage control to be done. Experienced soldiers and officers could not afford the luxury of bed rest. If one could walk, one could work. And that was that.
Seven short days and even shorter nights later, here he was. Uniform haphazardly put on and held together by the very few buttons he had been able to vanquish, uncharacteristically dishevelled and unshaven, waiting by the door of a hospital room on a sunny Wednesday morning.
The Lieutenant was to be discharged today. Much too soon, in his opinion. The woman was strong and too stubborn to die, but she was still pale as a sheet, almost to the point of transparency. He was fairly certain that if he sneezed too close to her, she would collapse like a rag doll.
She is well enough to leave, the doctors had said to him earlier that day.
We need the bed, he had heard.
He had wanted to protest. But she had caught his eyes and he had realized this was a battle that did not need to be fought.
Truth be told, he knew she hated that she had to spend an extra week cooped up in the hospital. In the many years he had known her, Riza Hawkeye had never dealt with inactivity very well. Combine that with solitude and he knew it was downright unbearable for her.
He had watched as she signed her release form, handed her a clean uniform, and stepped outside to wait.
When the door finally opened, she walked out of the room looking as pristine as ever, like she had not just suffered a traumatic injury, hair neatly pulled back and uniform perfectly fitted. The doctor escorting her insisted but she politely declined to be taken to the exit in a wheelchair. She thanked him and promised to take care of herself.
Yet another promise that Roy knew would soon be forgotten.
If one could walk, one could work. And that was that.
“You look like Hell, Sir.”
They were slowly walking down to the car park where a commissioned vehicle was patiently waiting to take them back to HQ.
Her voice was barely above a whisper and Roy had to strain to hear her, but the clear disapproval in her eyes was enough for him to know he had heard her just right.
He raised an eyebrow and shot her a hurt look over his shoulder. “Well, Lieutenant. If you must know, I have it on good authority that the stubble gives me a roguish kind of charm that the ladies find irresistible.”
“Hm. Would said authority happen to be your own, Colonel?”
The woman had never known how to pull her punches, had she? “Ouch."
He chose to ignore her discreet little snicker and led her to the car, relieved that she wouldn't have to walk any further. Ever the gentleman, he opened the door and held out his arm, ready to guide her to her seat.
Ever the dedicated soldier, she stood ramrod straight to the side until he sighed and sat down first.
Roy was not a religious man by any means. But God, he had missed her.
The remainder of their day was spent in long, mind-numbing debriefings. Until her release from the hospital, Riza’s condition had not allowed for the military to take her statement and hear her perspective on the events of what was now being referred to as “The Promised Day”.
As her commanding officer, Roy was required to attend. She was being questioned by a very green, recently appointed investigations committee. Their predecessors had fled, supposedly to Aerugo, on day two of a government wide inquiry looking to identify potential traitors.
The new committee was learning and learning fast, but not without growing pains. In their efforts to leave no stone unturned, they kept Riza for over seven hours, with only a thirty-minute interruption for a late lunch. Although she would never let it show, he could see the telltale signs of exhaustion on her face and her posture. A very slight slouch in her shoulders. A tightness around her eyes.
The endless line of questioning was painful and Roy’s patience was already running very thin by hour four. But Riza kept diligently answering every question to the best of her recollection.
Leaving just enough details out.
Such as the fact that she almost shot him to keep him from veering off the righteous path.
Or that he had almost committed an unspeakable sin just to keep her alive.
Or that he had screamed her rank until his voice broke, while she bled out on the concrete.
Small details.
He was grateful when it finally ended and they let her go. It was time to take her home.
Against her many protests, Roy drove her home in his personal car. It had been sitting unused only two streets down from headquarters since Breda had parked it there a week before, after picking him up from the hospital.
Roy insisted that she was in no condition to drive, Riza argued that he could not even use his hands to put his clothes on properly and should not be operating a moving vehicle.
It was a testament to her exhaustion that she relented and let him have his way eventually.
He drove on slowly, gingerly holding the steering wheel by his fingertips and letting her shift the gears for him.
What a sad, tired team they made, he thought.
It wasn’t until they reached the safety of her apartment that they finally abandoned all pretenses. The door was barely shut when Roy gathered Riza into his arms and held on as tight as he could, while being mindful of her delicate condition.
She buried her face in his shoulder, breathing him in.
They were finally free of the homunculi. The nightmare had ended. There were no prying eyes watching their every move.
Tomorrow, they would get back to work and rebuild the country.
Tonight, they would rest.
Roy closed his eyes, enjoying the moment. He wanted to tell her about his crazy week and that he had missed her. He was happy she was whole. Alive. Here with him. Then he wanted to tell her he loved her, although he knew that she knew that.
He was distracted from his train of thought when he heard her mumble something into his coat.
“What was that?”
She raised her face to look at him and smiled the kind of smile she put on when she was trying to be gentle about delivering bad news.
“You smell a little rank, Roy.”
He just gaped at her, appalled, then scoffed. “Well, try taking a shower without getting your hands wet, then we can talk about who stinks more!”
“You need to shave. And wash your hair.”
“But I told you, ladies find me irresistible!”
“Not this lady. Hit the showers, Colonel.”
Out of arguments and startled right out of his loving, romantic reverie, he just silently followed his lieutenant as she led him to the next room.
While she helped him get out of his dress shirt, he looked at her in the harsh, white light of her small bathroom. Took in the bags under her eyes, the bandage on her throat, the pallor of her skin and the thin lines around her eyes that he could swear had never been there before.
“I love you, you know?”
She stopped and looked up at him with tender eyes, then brought her lips up to his for a short kiss. “I love you too. Now strip.”
One could always count on Riza Hawkeye to be the practical one.
Well, he guessed there were worse ways to end the week than getting a sponge bath from a beautiful woman.
As he sat down in her small bathtub, elbows on his knees and hands held up to keep them dry, Roy suddenly remembered something.
"Riza?"
She made a small sound to acknowledge him as she turned the water on.
"Do you see that grey hair sticking out on top of my skull? Would you mind pulling it out for me?"
Riza stilled as she was about to start washing his back. "Really?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I happen to have it on good authority that some ladies would find a silver fox irresistible."
At that, Roy just raised an eyebrow, and smirked. "Now whose authority might that be?"
Riza smirked right back. "The one that counts, Colonel."
The end.