HOME | DD

Description
The soldier yelled, firing his weapon into the air.

"Stoi! STOI!" (Stop! STOP!)

Edward turned to see an officer with his sub-machine gun levelled at him.

"Nich shiesen, freund!" (Don't shoot, friend!) He yelled back, holding his arms up, hoping that the Russian understood at least some of his German.

"Freund? I don't even know you." Pyotr kept his weapon steady, staring at this blonde civilian. He was clearly of drafting age, but he was unarmed, and had no uniform... so was he a deserter? He mustered what pidgin German he could manage.

"What's your name?"

"Edward. Yours?"

"Captain Pyotr, 13th Guards Rifle Division. What are you doing away from shelter? Are you a soldier?"

"No, I'm a civilian... I was trying to help the family across the road whose house got hit by your artillery."

The soldier lowered his weapon. Something about him... he looked suspiciously like Fuery. Edward grinned silently: Fate had an odd way of throwing him reminders.

Pyotr slung his weapon over his shoulder: There was something about this man... the movement in his right arm... and why the hell was he grinning?! He might be something of interest to the Polkovnik he reasoned.

"Come with me: I need to take you to my commanding officer."

High above them, Natalya lowered her rifle: The blonde civilian was not a threat. She raised the rifle again, scanning the skyline for targets, the sniper scope steady in her view.

***

Hawkeye's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. Did he HAVE to snore? She could accept that being a Brigadeer General now, Mustang had more work than before, but this... this was just too much.

A stifled wheeze erupted from Roy's nose and she knitted her eyebrows all the more, trying to force herself not to pull out her revolver. She glanced back into the other office, keeping an eye on the subordinates. Winry was proving her worth since she had got her commission, and she certainly cowed the office when Riza had been looking after Roy. Since falling from that damn... contraption that had come through while closing the gate, she'd had to keep long hour vigils over him. Only now, six months later, was he finally able to return to work. And he was sleeping.

"Riza..."

She broke out of her trance, and snapped to attention.

"Sir?"

She held the salute for a few seconds, before realising that, of course, he had said her name in his sleep. She walked over to him, sighing and propping up his head with the pillow she had hidden behind her desk for just such an occasion, closing the door behind her to make sure that the others did not notice that he was napping while they were being driven under not one, but two task-mistresses.

"Please... don't go..."

She looked at him surprised, then wanting to slap him awake. What right did he have to even ask that?! HE was the one who had left! And he... Her eyes opened wide, noticing that he was holding her hand, that smirk she both loved and hated spread across his lips.

"Got you."

"Indeed you do. Now let go of my hand before I send you back to sleep."

"No."

She had been expecting a playful response, or him to pretend to be hurt, but... he had said no?

"Why not?"

"I need to talk to you."

She brushed her hair away and began picking up papers, trying desperately to distract herself from this man who had left her without so much as a goodbye.

"There's nothing to talk about. You left an..."

He laid his hand on head, brow wrinkling into a frown.

"I should never have done so. I thought I could escape it, Riza... but no matter where I ran, memories..."

Was he... crying? There was a glimmer from his cheek, and the clouds of anger rolled away just a little.

"There's only one thing that stops them."

She knew what was coming, but she still couldn't accept that it could be. She looked away, trying to hide her scarlet cheeks.

"Riza... please..."

Suddenly a gaping crack ripped its way into existence across the wall, Mustang running to the window with his loyal bodyguard, wiping his face as he did so.

"A transmutation?!"

The bright light stretched around the whole command centre. Too late, he started yelling for everyone to get out. With a sound like the ripping of the universe itself, the building began to disappear from the face of Amestris. As the boundaries between worlds broke, he only just had time to take one last look at her.

"Riza..."

Then the very essence of their lives, the universe, truth and everything faded into nothingness.