Disclaimer: I don't own Full Metal Alchemist, kay?

A/N: Yay, new story! Okay, so this is a Royai fic. There'll be a few scenes of Maes/Roy friendship, but since that's going to get it's own story (eventually), it'll be almost exclusively Royai. I'm not even sure how much the characters other than Roy and Riza (and Maes, sometimes) will appear or if they even will appear at all after the first two chapters or so. I'm dedicating this to my friend Flags, who utterly loves the Royai pairing and who roleplays the lufferly Royboy with me. :3 Enjoy, and please review! -guides your mouse to the review button-

Chapter 1: Late

The day had started off on a sour note when one Colonel Roy Mustang had woken up nearly an hour later than usual to find his alarm clock in several pieces on the floor. Quickly scrambling to the nearby closet in which his military jacket was hung and rummaging through the pockets for his silver pocketwatch revealed that he was already ten minutes late for work. Damn it. His subordinates were going to get a kick out of this, he thought with a sigh. Well, at least his male subordinates. Hawkeye would very likely just be pissed off.

The twenty-nine-year-old colonel decided quickly that hygiene was more important than food, and besides, he was feeling slightly queasy anyway, so spent the next five minutes getting cleaned up and dressed, quickly stuffing half a bagel into his mouth on his way out. He could supplement it with some coffee at the office later. That queasy feeling from before started to return a few minutes later, but Roy brushed it off, simply assuming that it was because he was anxious about being late and had probably eaten that bagel too fast as had taken off for Central HQ.

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Lt. Riza Hawkeye was not happy. She was not happy at all. Her lips were tightly pursed and her brows deeply furrowed. The woman had her pistol pointed at the door, as if she were going to shoot the hapless colonel when he came in for being late. Damn him, he knew today was important, knew that he had to be there on time, if not early. That man had better have a good excuse for being late on his assessment day... Something along the lines of saving the Fuhrer's life, and she might decide not to chew him out.

Havoc and the others had made very sure to keep their distance from the irate lieutenant. Some squirrely kid named Anderson had made the mistake of bothering her earlier, and now, there were several new holes in the wall that distinctly resembled the outline of a person...

The sound of a door opening was heard, and the raven-haired colonel himself made his grand (or not-so-grand) entrance.

"Ah, the man of the hour," she remarked bluntly as she stepped forward, "Care to explain why you're late on your assessment day?"

A/N: Sorry for the shortness of this chapter! I had more planned, but that seemed like such a good stopping point...I'll update it soon. Eventually. Hopefully. XD