Log; Complete

[guardianed.livejournal.com]

When; Tuesday, October 23rd, after this.
Rating; PG
Characters; First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye [guardianed] & Colonel Roy Mustang [flameroy]
Summary; In the aftermath of the latest fight [log still pending], Hawkeye and the Colonel have a chat. (read; Hawkeye is tired and cranky and the Colonel is groggy.)
Log;

The trip to the Underground had been a bizarre one- the Colonel, slung unconscious over Barry's shoulder, Hawkeye following, still careful of her arm- gun at the ready in the other, watching all the corners, twists and turns- hopefully Lust and Envy hadn't seen them meet Barry, hopefully they weren't being followed, and Hawkeye detested being this useless.

Goddamnit, why'd he have to get himself more hurt than her- it had been she who had been threatened, she who should have taken the damage, and the Colonel had taken Lust's lance to the stomach again, and she had been powerless to stop it.

Hawkeye's eyebrows drew together, eyes closed- this was so frustrating-

She hadn't moved from his side since Barry'd put him down. Waiting was tiring. Guarding she could do, but Barry had said this was safe, and she'd just have to trust his word.

Everything was black. That was odd, he felt sure that it had been a little lighter than this in the apartment... and his eyes felt heavy... aching... in fact many parts of him felt achy, and not in any good way either.

Remembering what had happened was initially hazy what with the constant reminder of pain, especially in his stomach - although he sometimes put stomache aches down to what he'd eaten the night before and if not that then the attack from Lust...

Lust...  now just wait a minute, that was familiar. Lust... Envy... "HAWKEYE!?" Before he knew it he was sat up straight, eyes open and scrambling about to try and figure out where he was, and why the hell he was on the floor when the Lieutenant was raging a battle against Envy and why wasn't he protecting her?

Hawkeye snapped out of her reverie, where the Colonel had already bolted upright-

"Colonel! Please don't strain yourself!" One hand had already gone out to steady his shoulder, he was going to hurt himself more at this rate...

Not on her watch. She'd been unable to help him in his fight, there was no way she'd let him down now.

"Lieutenant." He muttered the moment that he heard her, trying to gather his wits about him. He wasn't sure where he was, or how he had gotten here. Without thinking his hand moved to rest on top of Hawkeye's.

"We're safe? Are you alright?" He questioned, moving instantly to face her, wincing at the pian but enduring it. His brain was hazy - but he had his priorities, if they needed medical attention that would be first on his list.

If he was balanced enough to spare one of his hands, she could move it away.

"We're in the Underground; only Barry knows where this is- it's the safest place I could come up with on short notice." She'd panicked, she'd known they needed to move and had nowhere in mind- Barry had offered and she had accepted. Desperation made strange decisions seem logical.

"Medics have already seen to your wounds, sir." And it was a slight pause before she added on, "And mine."

It wasn't until Hawkeye's hand moved that he realised what he done, but the gesture was soon forgotten in place of worry for his Lieutenant. Right, the underground, were they really safe here? Barry - at least they could trust him.

"I don't remember walking here..." He asked with a frown, before arching an eyebrow. "Your injuries? How bad?"

"We need to leave." He added, pressing a hand to his forehead and then another to the floor as if to stand - why was everything so blurry?

"You didn't. Barry carried you. He decided that knocking you out was easier." Hawkeye couldn't see properly- her hands were shaking.

"I'm fine. They're healed, for the most part." Normalcy, normalcy. Pretend that this is okay, a discussion on what they had just sustained as injuries, completely rational, calm head, steady.

"No. There's a curse. We'll stay here until it's over." Wouldn't risk seeing him injured again- how many times would she have to witness that? How many times would she have to go through this? She had to be stronger than this. Had to be reliable enough to be worthy to guard his back...how could she do that if she kept letting him nearly die?


Overload.


And before she realized what she'd done, she'd slapped him. As hard as she could muster with shaking hands. "Why did you do that?"

And then she was shouting at him- "Why did you go out of your way to make Envy angry at you? Don't you realize how dangerous the situation is here? You have to be more careful than that, Colonel! We can't keep fighting them! We were lucky to get away with our lives this time! If the medics hadn't been so quick-"

The blonde had balled her hands into fists. Their shaking was less visible like that. That last thought had been too close to home.

Her throat seemed too dry to form words. "Don't you realize that you could die here, and never be able to go back to Amestris?"

Carried him? What! He frowned, and was about to protest about being carried, about to say that he was going home - until he was slapped. Instantly his expression shifted and his look was of pure shock.

A hand lifted to his face where his cheek stung. Well, that was new... and so was this.

He wasn't sure he could ever remember Hawkeye shouting at him like she was doing. He could vaguely remember a time when she may have raised her voice - perhaps shouted but never at him, and like this.

Just staring at her was all he could manage once she stopped, and he was torn. "I..."

He couldn't go anywhere - they were going to be stuck here for a while apparently - not that he was aware of any curse going on - he'd been far too focussed on other things. His face paled further at the thought of what he'd done - the danger he'd brought to not only himself but Hawkeye...

"Ri-- I..." he turned his head away - sorry was always difficult. It felt as if sorry wouldn't be enough... how could it have been? He wasn't even sure exactly of how bad his injuries had been - not until now as he was actually giving it some thought. He could have died?

There was conflict, guilt, anger feelings he'd rarely experienced recently racking his brain. He wasn't even sure he could give her a justified answer.

"I realise that." Was all he could manage.

Hawkeye's hands fell from her lap to the ground, head bowed. She felt like everything had been drained out of her in that one outburst.

"Then don't... Stop putting yourself in more danger. You're in enough as it is." And it was nothing she could protect him from. Wrath had moved her from his side, the President King had enforced that separation.

"...You can't." How many times had she asked him not to die? He couldn't. She was supposed to protect him.

He couldn't say it was the first time he had seen Hawkeye in such a position... but the fact that he, and he alone had brought on such a bout of anger and this... mess. His eyes closed, and he reached up a hand to press onto her shoulder - just the same as she had done, but the gesture was halted just before contact was made. He didn't deserve the honour.

His head tipped forward in much the same fashion as hers. "I..." would it mean anything to her..?

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant."

Hawkeye pressed the heel of her hand to one eye, pushed the tears that lurked there back until her eye protested from the pressure. She wouldn't cry. Not in front of the Colonel, not again.

She couldn't afford to. Needed to be the soldier she had been trained to be. The reliable, strong, careful right hand of the Colonel.

She didn't need to hear the Colonel's apology. Not really. She needed to know he understood, which was disconcerting in its own way- she had always assumed that understanding was there. But the Colonel's face after she'd yelled at him- he really hadn't understood. Damn the world difference. The things she knew and he did not, the things she had gone through and he only knew from her reports... like the wound to his stomach. She'd felt sick when she'd seen Lust had stabbed him again, in the same place- probably on purpose. The Colonel wouldn't have remembered.

Hawkeye straightened. Couldn't let herself stay in this mental track.

But it took her a while before she could chance looking back at the Colonel, that same while to come up with something- anything- to say.

"Just be more careful, sir." Please don't die.

Please don't die.

She'd said it after her father's funeral, after she'd learned he was going to be in the military for life. She'd said it when she'd come back after her reassignment to warn him. And she'd say it again.

"Please don't die."

His lips pursed tightly together, leant up to see whether she would look at him again. The silence was eerie in a way that he couldn't quite describe if he wanted to. He'd let her down so badly, so very badly. 

Careful. Of course. Careful wasn't something he hadn't been practicing for a while. Hawkeye had a point - it was dangerous here, moreso than in Amestris. It was strange though - the fact that even though they were from different worlds... they had already talked about this.

He didn't know how to respond to Hawkeye's plead with him not to die - he didn't have any plans to. Well, apparently not, although the sentiment had been there on many occasions. Had he really lowered himself to such a low standard? Had he really forgotten his values, his goals, his Lieutenant?

The desire to reach out or something overwhelmed him - he and Hawkeye had been so close just after Bradley's downfall - things had been so much clearer before then...

"I... Yes."

Had their worlds diverged so much that that was all he had to say?

Hawkeye found she could look at him again, and found she had expected another response. He was just sitting there. He was still injured. Wounds that she should have been able to prevent. She'd taken her own set instead, the sickening crunch of bone giving way called back to mind. Hawkeye stood up, and walked a few paces away, rubbing her arm, before turning back.

"...I shouldn't have hit you."

It wasn't so much that he didn't have anything to say to Hawkeye - it was the fact that he didn't know how to say it - or whether he should say what was on his mind. The fact that she was looking at him made him feel uneasy, and not for the first time in his life he felt relief once she had walked away.

"I was deserving of it." He said blankly, sighing and moving to sit so that he was slumped against a nearby wall, his cheek still stung, probably because of the thought behind it.

"How long do we need to stay here, Lieutenant?"

There was a chair to lean on- fortunate, really, because Hawkeye's tiredness was beginning to catch up to her. "I'm not sure." This was easy, she could report this back without thinking.

"It seems that people are being accused of witchcraft. It has the potential to become violent. ...I'd rather not risk leaving here while that's going on or while your injuries are still initially recovering. I was told that you should take it easy for a few days."

"...There's another chair if you'd rather, Colonel."

A few days, and that meant what exactly.  He'd have to put up with this self-torture for 'a few days'.  He actually managed to hide his sigh from her, and stand up to move across to where this other chair was - he hadn't really taken the time to look around at where he was, but he had been too... he had to let it go.

"Thank you." He said simply, moving the chair to sit opposite Hawkeye and slump down into it... just staring about the room they were in. This was... uncomfortable to say the least.

"Witch craft, that's a new one."

With the Colonel slumped into his chair, and her leaning on the other one, they made a fine picture of the survivors of a traumatic battle.

Hawkeye was merely glad it wouldn't take as long to heal here as it did in Amestris. She would have been out of action for a while, with how badly her arm had been crushed, not to mention the cracked rib- that had hurt. And the Colonel-

"They usually only last for a day."

He had taken to just looking at her out of the corner of his eyes, slumped back and allowing his hands to fall either side of the chair he sat on. It was unsettling to say the least to know that actually he was still aching all over, and unbelievably tired.

"Mhm." was his most simple reply - turning his head away from the Lieutenant seemed to ease the discomfort... shaking his guilt was going to be tremendously difficult.

"What injuries did you sustain...? Are they healed, moreover?"


"They're healed." There was no reason to burden him with her injures as well. "The medics who tended to your injuries looked after mine as well."

"...I... was not as injured as you, Colonel." And after she'd told him that she was in more danger, that she was more likely to be targeted in the fight; she should have known that fighting Lust would always be worse, even if she hadn't known how Envy fought. Should have expected Lust to attack the Colonel, should have analyzed things better.

In a twisted way, they had succeeded. They had made it out with their lives- far more than many could say after facing two homunculi.

Hawkeye was tired. Energy ran low after dealing with the injuries she'd sustained, and the vigil she'd kept waiting for the Colonel to wake up. It had seemed like forever. But she had to push it back, stay alert enough to think straight, answer the questions that needed answering, and not answer the ones that didn't need to be answered.

The Colonel wasn't stupid. He saw right through that. Perhaps he had been injured pretty badly, but he knew for a fact that Hawkeye had suffered her fair share too... what was worse was the fact that he had been knocked out... Why hadn't she been resting too?

"How long has it been since we were healed?" He asked, with his usual air of superiority hanging between them, but it was soon lost when he sighed. "You've haven't rested properly yet, have you?"

"I don't know." It's difficult to mark the passage of time in the Underground. The logic that sprang to mind but she didn't say.

"On the order of hours, I believe." How many was impossible to say. How long had she sat, waiting for motion from the Colonel, worrying over the slightest noise?

Of course she hadn't rested. "It's my duty, sir."

Hours... Well at least he had the general picture that they'd been down here for at least more than a matter of minutes, which in turn meant that as he had suspected - no Hawkeye had not had any rest. Another sigh.

"I'm commanding you to rest." He said pointedly, just watching her.

Hawkeye may have found it necessary to lean against the chair, but her stare was just as pointed when she looked back at the Colonel.

"No." She'd defied him once before, disobeying a direct order. He was in no condition to keep watch. And this was her job. She wouldn't let go of it that easy.

He wasn't sure whether he had expected her to do as he told her, but the moment her clear defiance met his ears a frown pressed into his features, and he moved his arms up from his sides, leaning forward on the chair - which actually hurt his stomach slightly, but he chose to ignore it. His elbows rested on his thighs and he allowed his hands to fall out infront of him.

"Hawkeye. You need rest or else you'll be completely useless." Harsh, yes he knew.

She met his frown with a perfectly blank expresssion; the one she'd perfected after weeks with the President King watching her movements. Completely useless she had already been. Lack of sleep could do no more harm, as they were in no state to fight again, even if it was needed. The Lieutenant was used to keeping watch and standing guard, the Colonel was not. She had done this before.

"And you're in no condition to keep watch, Colonel."

"I'm not an invalid, Lieutenant. My wounds are healed, I'm in the same state as you are - only you look exhausted." He said flatly, leaning up slightly and cupping his hands together, head dipping instantly. Were they really this pathetic.

He wasn't going to win.

"Just don't get snarky with me when I have to carry you out of here though."

"You are an invalid, sir, you're to take it easy for several days while things heal." She kept her gaze trained on him, refusing to allow her eyes to waver.

"Your wounds were much more severe." She was repeating herself, but he wasn't getting the point. And if she couldn't handle a couple hours- she really had no idea how long it had been- of sitting, then she had truly become weak. To think that she had waited overnight at attention, waiting for the Colonel to come out, only to be defeated by this- it was unacceptable.

"I'll be fine."

He sighed to make his annoyance clear and turned his head away from the Lieutenant, leaning back in the process and folding his arms across his chest - that hurt too. Stubborn Lieutenant.

Thought like that were most difficult, when it was so obvious that the Lieutenant had done far too much for him, and yet he was always refused his attempts to return the favour. He knew the reasons, he knew his reasons, and he knew hers. Still...

"If you pass out, don't think I'll wake you."

She would just have to not pass out if he was going to let her sleep.

This was her job, her duty, her position. She had been his aide, his armed guard. Being removed from that-

This was her chance to do her part. Do what the weeks of her reassignment had prevented her from doing.

She was determined to do it.