The battle was over.

The city lay in ruins, but the silence was heavier than the rubble. Smoke drifted through the streets like ghosts. The air was thick with ash, blood, and the metallic scent of alchemy spent.

Medics moved between the wounded. Soldiers gathered the fallen. Alchemists stood in quiet clusters, their eyes hollow, their hands still trembling from the weight of what they’d done.

Olivier Mira Armstrong stood apart.

Her coat was torn, her blade still sheathed but stained. Her posture was rigid, commanding, but her eyes—her eyes were searching.

Not for enemies.

Not for survivors.

For you.

You hadn’t been seen since the final charge. Not among the injured. Not among the dead. Not in the lists being compiled by exhausted hands.

She didn’t ask aloud. She didn’t let herself. Because asking would mean admitting fear.

And Olivier Mira Armstrong did not fear.

Except now, she did. She feared you were gone.

She feared that in the chaos, in the fire and fury, you had been swallowed whole—and she hadn’t stopped it. Hadn’t protected you. Hadn’t said what she should have said.

She walked the perimeter, boots crunching over broken stone, jaw clenched so tightly it ached. Her soldiers watched her, but no one spoke. They knew better.

She passed Edward, Alphonse, Roy Mustang. Nodded. Didn’t stop.

She passed a medic with a clipboard. Didn’t ask. She passed a body covered in a white sheet. Didn’t look. Because if she looked, and it was you—

She wouldn’t recover.

Then—

“Olivier…”

A voice. Soft. Familiar.

Yours.

She froze. Turned. And saw you.

Standing at the edge of the square, dust-streaked, bruised, alive.

Her breath caught.

You were limping slightly. One arm wrapped in bandages. But you were upright. Breathing. Looking at her.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t wait.

She walked—fast, firm, unstoppable. You stepped forward, trying to smile. “Are you—”

She grabbed your face. Her gloves were rough. Her grip was strong. And then—

She kissed you.

No warning. No words. Just the press of her mouth against yours, fierce and trembling, like something she’d held back for too long.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was relief. It was everything she hadn’t said. When she pulled back, her eyes were burning.

“You disappeared,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t care.”

You blinked. “We’re not—”

“I know.”

Silence.

Then you whispered, “I thought you didn’t—”

“I do.”

She looked away, jaw tight.

“I didn’t know how to say it,” she admitted. “Not with rank. Not with pride. Not with everything I’ve had to be.”

You touched her hand.

“I always knew,” you said.

She looked at you again.

And this time, she didn’t hide.

Because in the end, Olivier Mira Armstrong wasn’t afraid of war.

She was afraid of love. Of needing someone. Of being seen not as a general, but as a woman who had something to lose. And she had almost lost you.

So she kissed you.

Because you were alive. Because she was tired of pretending. Because even the strongest walls crack when the battle ends.