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The door creaks and then clicks shut.
Slowly, I return to my body. The first awareness I have is of pain. My wrists hurt where they were held down. There will surely be bruises on my hips. My other injuries… I don’t care to catalog them.
With a shuddering breath, I press my hands against the polished wooden surface of the desk and force myself into a standing position. I start to take a step, then nearly trip on my own pants and underwear tangled around my legs.
Bending over to retrieve them is an agony, but I manage it. My hands are shaking so badly, it’s only with supreme effort that I manage to re-fasten my trousers and belt.
A mirror hangs on the wall of the Fuhrer’s office, and I stumble over to it.
My face is unblemished. My cheeks are dry, and my eyes are not red-rimmed. My hair, though, is in shambles where he gripped it to hold me down. I carefully untangle it from its clip and use my fingers to try to brush the strands back into order. When everything is all in place, I look at myself again and give a sharp nod.
Nothing out of line.
My throat feels raw from the strain of trying not to scream.
As I start to turn away from the mirror, something dawns on me.
He didn’t even interrogate me this time. He didn’t ask a single question. Didn’t make a single threat.
And somewhere along the line, I stopped fighting back.
I did fight, in the beginning… Didn’t I?
My body is suddenly too heavy to hold me up, and I sag against the wall, slowly sliding to the floor. I bend my knees and try to make myself as small as possible, trying to disappear entirely into the darkness surrounding me. My entire body shakes with the force of the sobs, but I keep myself nearly silent aside from the occasional sharp intake of breath that stabs like a blade and forces its way through my dry, cracked lips.
—-------
I have no idea how long I stay huddled on the floor. No one comes to look for me.
At times, I’m sure the eyes of Pride stare at me out of the corners of the room, but it remains unseen. Still its presence pervades, endlessly sucking hope from the room until I feel I could suffocate.
From the orange glow of the sun as it kisses the distant treetops, I can tell it’s late afternoon when I finally rise. I wait, pacing back and forth before I return to the mirror.
It’s late enough that the odds of running into you are low, but just in case, I take the time to set the stage. Hair perfect, uniform straight. I pinch my cheeks to try to force some color into them. I try to smile softly in the mirror, aiming for an imitation of the secret glance I give you when nobody else is watching. I don’t recognize my reflection, so I give up. A picture only paints a thousand words, anyways, and it would take far more than that to explain to you what’s happened.
I glance again at the window. The sun has sunk below the treeline in the distance.
Surely, by now you’ll have left for the day? Perhaps to Chris’ bar or some other safe haven now forbidden to me.
I push aside the bitter thought and check my appearance a final time.
If I did run into you now…would you see that I am incomplete and undone?
I can’t allow myself to want you to see beyond the veneer I’ve perfected.
Besides, even if I do encounter you…I have my lines rehearsed.
I’m just fine, thank you, sir.
The ground seems to move beneath my feet as I walk across the floor and enter the hallways of Central HQ. I’m unsure if it's safe and sound, but I push onward. I have to get home for Black Hayate’s sake if nothing else.
It’s late enough.
I won’t see you here.
It’s fine.
I’m perfectly fine, sir, thank you.
I nearly collide with you in the hallway.
“Colonel Mustang, sir!”
Is my hand shaking as I make my salute? Can I pass that off as being startled? When have you ever known me to be startled by anything? Surely, you’ll know. You must know. You must be able to see…
“Lieutenant Hawkeye,” you breathe out my name like a sigh of relief, and somewhere in the back of my mind the old, care-worn sense of exasperation with you stirs.
You can’t be so obvious, Roy! We’re under surveillance. We can’t afford rumors and whispers.
You give me the shadow of a grin, as if you can tell exactly what I’m thinking as you straighten your posture, adopting a perfectly formal tone.
You have no idea.
“You’re working late. I assume things are always busy in the Fuhrer’s office. The work is never done, eh?”
I search my mind frantically for a moment, uncertain if I’ve missed a hidden code or meaning in your words, and something in your eyes flickers uncertainly.
“Yes, sir,” I say brusquely. “I’m sure the work is piling up for you as well, sir.”
“How could it not?” You smile. “Without you and the others to keep me in line, I must be a month behind in paperwork.”
I nod and start to continue on my way.
“Lieutenant?”
My heart stutters, then stops beating all together.
There’s such sweet relief, such a blissful moment of peace in knowing that you’ve seen through the act.
You know me. You’ve found me. You see me.
Only I know I cannot allow that to happen.
I see you, too.
The dark circles under your eyes. The coffee stain on the collar of your shirt. The light stubble on your chin—more than a day’s growth. For you, too, there’s more that’s going on behind the scenes.
My left hand aches—empty where my wedding ring should lay.
I school my features into one of my practiced looks of casual curiosity and turn again to face you. I can’t quite stop my eyes from resting briefly on your bare ring finger.
There’s a window behind you, and a faint pink glow still remains of the setting sun, illuminating you, glinting off your alabaster skin and dark hair, which you shake back out of your eyes as I observe you.
You’re beautiful.
You’re mine.
I was supposed to be only yours.
You will never see me as beautiful again.
You turn your head slightly to one side.
“Are you alright, Lieutenant Hawkeye?”
No.
I want to scream it at the top of my lungs.
What’s awful is the knowledge that I could . I could tell you here and now, and you would take me away. You would hide me completely, end the endless cycle of abuse and pain and torment. Every part of my body aches for it to end.
The sun dips low enough in the sky to cast the hallway into a pallor of shadow, and terror runs up my spine as I imagine red eyes in the darkness and remember their threats—against you, the rest of the team, the Elrics, the Hughes, anyone and everyone I have ever cared about. But mostly, I fear for you.
So I cannot tell you.
The risk is far too great. The world needs you far more than it will ever need me. I can be sacrificed for the greater good.
You cannot.
“Perfectly fine, sir,” I say blandly. “And you?”
I cannot pull back the curtain and allow you to see the anguish in which their brutality has left me. I let only a part of myself be seen.
Which shouldn’t strike you as odd, because when am I not holding back something of my true self?
Only on the occasional weekend trip to Central City where we abscond to your childhood home to don our wedding rings and become simply Roy and Riza, rather than Colonel and Lieutenant….
“Oh, perfectly fine,” you repeat. This is a code I recognize, repeating my words as if to say: I’m doing exactly as well as you are. It’s killing me to be apart from you.
You think that’s all that’s wrong. You can’t see what’s really out of line after all.
You nod and smile slightly at me. I try to return it and seem to manage, because you turn and continue on your way.
I want to shout after you, to call you back. I want to shake you and beat at your chest for allowing this to happen. I want to sob on your shoulder and feel your strong arms around me.
I walk away as fast as my throbbing body can bear.
There’s more than you could ever know behind the scenes.
As I make my way through the hallways of Central HQ over the next few days it’s a relief to know that at least I seem fine.
Perfectly fine.
I can pretend it’s true.
Until the next time I cross the threshold to Fuhrer Bradley’s office to deliver his afternoon tea. Then I remember that things aren’t always what they seem.