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She’s able to feel the viscosity of blood gushing, its metallic aroma that reminds her so much of Ishval, just like that of gunpowder itself. With the tips of her fingers, she can touch the folds of torn skin, pressing them with a strength that slips away from her with every passing second against a wound that not even the best tourniquet could contain.
She once heard that with a hemorrhage of such magnitude the human body could endure, barely, a few agonizing minutes. Never more than half an hour. Riza feels no pain; however, she cannot deceive herself when she can barely keep her eyes half-open and tries, in vain, to contain the tremors that run through her from head to toe in order not to alarm him any further. A naïve thought considering there’s a pool of her blood that expands and expands with every blink.
He screams ferociously, very far away and in a choked whisper, and despite the distance at which she hears it, his desperation is inherent, and she fears that in his agitation perhaps his carotid might burst as well.
Everything sounds faint in her lethargy: the ranting of the lunatic beside her, Roy's hoarse voice straining as he forces it higher and higher with the hope that she will hear him and respond, even the sound of blood gushing has faded. She has spent precious breath speaking, and her unbalanced body must be taking its toll. Riza knows that giving in to sleep is a grave mistake, yet it’s inevitable when she feels so light and the fatigue is so overwhelming that not even her fingers respond when she tries to move them.
As she breathes, air doesn’t fill her lungs, it barely reaches her throat. Time’s running out, and the less she feels her body, the more tormented she is by everything left undone. That he will have to learn to occupy the right side of the bed because she’ll no longer be there to warm it on cold nights, to think first of the worst in people because that is usually what they end up being. She leaves behind the unopened expensive bottle of champagne they had saved for when he was named Fuhrer, Hayate, Rebecca's contagious joy. Who will take the trouble to ensure he doesn’t drink himself into oblivion when he has an important meeting the next morning? Will he get another bodyguard half as capable as she was? Another love?
She loves him so much that she doesn't even feel capable of denying him that, she also doesn't have the strength to dwell on it for long.
The last thing she manages to take with her is the blurred image of his consternated face and another silent scream; then, nothingness. Something pulls at her arm. Riza doesn’t feel its touch but senses the tugging and her own steps moving forward until she stumbles upon a short staircase that she surpasses without questioning it, its old wood creaking beneath her feet in a sound too familiar that alarms her enough to pull her out of the trance and strip away the fear consuming her as she opens her eyes.
It’s a porch. Her porch. Shrouded in shadows that deny her full vision of it, but Riza has lived through too many things in this same place to not recognize it even if she were to go blind. It rains torrentially, and even so, she hears nothing—not the rain breaking against the ground nor the wind that once howled against the windows and wouldn’t cease until it cleared after hours and hours of torment.
She sharpens her gaze as her eyes adjust to the darkness, and the warm light glowing from the windows immediately captures her curiosity. She approaches one of them cautiously to catch a glimpse, and the scene steals a gasp from her lips. Her living room, filled with people in an atmosphere of warmth that would’ve never happened in her home, overflowing with life. Strangers with joyful expressions cluster in conversation or dance carefree in some open corner. People are going up and down the stairs to the second floor. On the sofa next to the bookshelf, she sees a woman whose smile never wavers as she talks to a young lady whose face she can barely make out among the crowd.
But those who stood in her way part as she wishes it, and Riza feels life slipping from her fingers once again.
Mom.
Mom, who retains her stunning youth and her blonde hair that shines like that last day she saw her with health. Mom, even more beautiful than she was in life if that's possible, with an easy, wide smile that laughs. What wouldn't Riza give to hear her tender laughter once more? The fortunes of the world wouldn't be enough to offer if that were possible. The other woman, whose lips Riza manages to read, calls her by name, Alicia, touching her as if to ensure that she’s okay, that she’s real, while tears slip down Riza's cheeks like the day she left while watching them from afar.
She fell asleep like a princess cursed by a spell, only she didn't have her happy ending.
Suddenly, mom looks at her, noticing among so many people her tears, and Riza pales in the midst of the crying that stops abruptly when she beckons with her hand without losing her smile, inviting her in. The sounds from inside become audible with the creak of the door opening abruptly. Her feet move ahead of her reasoning and stop at the threshold of the door, taking a better look at all the commotion. There’s even music. God only knows how, but her mom’s old acoustic guitar plays from some corner in an Aerugonian melody accompanied by clapping and footsteps of someone twirling to its tune with castanets.
It’s a beautiful dream because it feels like that: a dream.
But for perfection to be fulfilled she needs him by her side: for him to her meet her mom, dance the night away together, drink, laugh, enjoy themselves for once without further regrets or mundane worries; yet, he’s nowhere to be found and his absence is starting to make her nervous.
Wait, who’s absent?
Something holds her back from entering, an inexplicable pressure in her chest that dries her lips. A hand grips her by the forearm; its hold is firm and cold like the breath it releases against her neck, right where the wound is.
What wound?
“Lieutenant,” murmurs a voice from beyond the grave.
Every hair on her body stands on end, and Riza bites her lower lip to keep from crying. Father wasn't at the party; he never was at any of them—why would he be at this one? He wasn’t there because he was surely locked away in his study or because he had always been breathing down her neck, waiting for the precise moment to thwart any attempt at happiness she dared to pursue.
“Lieutenant,” he says again, louder this time. He repeats it in a loop as if he could do nothing but that over and over. The rain regains its thunderous sound and becomes stronger, splashing cold drops on her face. If she doesn’t go in soon, she’ll get completely soaked and will have to spend an eternity cleaning her wet weapons. And… weapons—what for? “Lieutenant!”
And it’s not father’s hoarse voice that makes the lights go out and the sky flash from one corner to another, calling her urgently from afar, but she feels as if the shout echoes right in her ear like thunder. The impact of one close by, combined with the deafening silence that follows its echo, urges her, with a nearly primitive premonition growing in her chest, to take matters into her own hands and follow her instinct. She’ll not enter the house, if that was mom inside or ever was, she’s no longer. She’s gone, and Riza has returned to being lucid enough not to seek in the uncertain a mirage.
Father finally releases her arm and doubles over in a fit of coughs, and the moment she knows she has the strength to run out into the open, she does so without a second thought. The rain crashes against her, stinging her face and flooding her eyes, but Riza keeps running regardless of having no fixed direction. She has to find him, needs to.
But, find who?
“Lieutenant, please, wake up!”
Electricity sweeps through every atom of her body and Riza stops dead in her tracks at the sensation. It’s not a shock, but rather a tingling that spreads from her extremities, encompassing her anatomy from the outside in until it culminates in her neck, in a specific point that begins to throb, making her instinctively place a hand over it.
The sky lights up again, this time blinding her. When she opens her eyes again, they sting and struggle to adjust to the dim cold light coming from above. A girl with slanted eyes looks at her and smiles with genuine satisfaction upon seeing her shiver uncomfortably but finally showing signs of life.
The arms she lies in tighten around her in an embrace that hurts, but that she doesn’t dare to complain. She recognizes that warmth, his scent amidst all the blood that covers her, and she can barely glimpse his black eyes welcoming her with so much love that it overwhelms her. Riza smiles to her heart about to explode from the joy of the sight of him. That means she’s still alive. Their long-awaited toast will happen someday, and he’ll not clink her glass with another love but with hers. She still has the chance to hold him for a thousand more nights, and she tells herself to settle that matter once everything passes because in his embrace she also receives the certainty of a victory that is not only tactical but personal.
“You recognized… my gaze,” she struggles to say, and although her voice comes out choppy, Roy seems to have no trouble understanding what she meant.
You didn’t do it. Thank you.
I was about to, but I trust you more than I trust myself.
An implicit I love you in his expression of relief as he holds her and offers her refuge in his arms even for a minute.
“We’ve been together for a long time.”