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"Were we ever men?"

The glass clinked on the table, the smell of the whiskey spreading around the room, as the Colonel's cool baritone voice reverberated around his office.

She looked up from arranging his paperwork for the umpteenth time, quite unprepared for the question.

"Sir?"

Mustang simply shook his head, then looked down at his hands.

"What did we go through Ishbal for? All the people we were forced to kill together... His family was his reward, and he died like that? Why did we even survive Ishbal?!"

Hawkeye stood back, shaken by the outburst.

"Hughes' death wa..."

"Spare me, Riza. Of course it was a surprise. But why him? And why now? We were moving up in the world... and this... I don't even know whether I deserve to be fuhrer: If I can't even look out for him, how can I look out for the whole Country?"

She'd known it was coming, this backlash against the truth he couldn't stomach - he'd already shown it when he'd come in
a few days before with a cut on his right palm, quite evidently from breaking a glass - but Hawkeye had never expected this
kind of response from her commander. She looked into his eyes, not sure whether to cradle or knock him out.

"Was it even worth surviving the war? I ask you again, Riza... were we ever men?"

She knew at that moment that there was only possible response, one choice that could possibly rebuild this shattered man: All the times she had pictured in her mind, all the scenarios she had pondered over during those lonely nights faded into the deep recesses of her mind where she had first recognised that flame. She walked up to him calmly, as he looked at the table, eyes glazed over with sorrow. "Yes, Roy. You were men."

He looked up at her as she layed her hand on his shoulder, his brown eyes searching her face for any answer it could trace.

"How can you know?"

She planted her lips on his, her hands resting around his neck, sure of her actions as always, despite her inner screams of confusion, which faded as Mustang responded in kind, his surprise melting into blissful release. After minutes of silence roaring in her ears, she pulled away, moving her lips to his ears to answer him.

"Because I fell in love with one."