Disclaimer: If I owned FMA, there'd be a whole episode from the point of view of Breda's sammich.

Inamorata

Roy Mustang fell in love the day he looked out from the Professor's study window and watched the young Riza Hawkeye lean on her rake and stare awhile at the pile of leaves she had spent the last hour to scrape from the lawn. She rested the rake handle against the tree trunk with care, considered the pile a few seconds longer, then made an abrupt turn on her heel for a languid fall back into the pile with arms outstretched. Three leaves fluttered up as she blew them away from her face, but she remained laying there, enveloped by the dry, crunchy leaves of the old elm and maple trees. All he could see of her were the worn leather garden boots sticking out from the bottom of the pile. He had seen them by the back porch door, hardened into a permanent shape with exposure to wet and dry, encrusted with mud, older than the girl that slipped them on with a grim face. He smiled, admiring from a distance, then turned back to the ancient chemistry text on the desk before him in the stuffy room with heavy regret.

Riza Hawkeye never fell in love. Over time those little quirks of his became predictable and expected. Every smirk and sly smile, every clever manipulation of a rival, every ridiculous fallibility. In the mornings she stacked his inbox in order of what his tolerance and patience allowed, switching around of a few pages surreptitiously if he walked in with a frown and hard eyes. She knew his habits and kept a watchful eye on him. He would try to seduce her when he felt impish, and these times she resigned herself to his sport until he once again became her colonel. The two settled into a pattern of comfortable familiarity. His goals and the power he wielded gave her life purpose and direction, and his creative antics along the way warmed her heart and tested her ability to keep a straight face.

That gangly teenaged boy from her past had transformed into the most important and cherished person in her life, and she realized that love was nothing but a word to her until he came into her life and gave it meaning.

AN: For RoyAi Day, a vignette. Not much, since though I knew it was approaching, I didn't know it was tomorrow. Had to get it out in time.