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Broody

adj broodier, broodiest

1. moody; meditative; introspective

2. Informal (of a woman) wishing to have a baby of her own

broodiness n

Roy Mustang kicked his foot through the steaming bath water splashing his Lieutenant-come-lover with a spray of suds. Riza Hawekeye levelled her amber eyes at him with unmasked dismay.

"Not funny." She said, wiping a particularly large lump of foam from her forehead.

"Admit it." He said, wiggling his big toe in front of her and avoiding her unimpressed stare.

"Pointless." She answered while forcing his foot back beneath the water with both hands.

"They would definitely be better." He was smirking now, enjoying the fact that she was starting to get riled. Roy on occasion would refer to Riza as his 'wingnut' on account of her being especially easy to wind up. No one else could do it, only Roy. He had something of a talent for rustling feathers.

"I should have known better-" she began, stretching her slim arms across the enamel edges of the tub, "bathing always makes you broody."

Roy's smirk fell away at that. "It's not broodiness - it's competition."

"Using our unborn and as yet unconceived, unplanned children..." She said flatly, then keeping her foot beneath the water, slid it along his inner leg until it rested just short of his crotch. "Splash me again and my right foot will make sure this conversation really is pointless … Sir."

Roy's thighs closed around her foot, his skin feeling rough with the wetted, coarse hair of his upper leg.

"Come on, Riza – our kids would definitely top Hughes'. Stop being coy. Admit it." He said, his grip on her foot tightening.

She let out an involuntary sigh and tried her best to disguise it as frustration but judging by the satisfied grin on Roy's face, it hadn't been with much success. "What about Elysia? You love that child." She asked, pulling her foot free and laying it over the top of his leg.

Roy thought about this, swirling a finger in the water as he did so. "Okay – I'll give them that. She's a cute kid but that's just first baby luck."

"No such thing."

"Elysia – child of Hughes. Case in point." He answered with childish petulance. "He wears home-mended glasses and irons his bed sheets for goodness sake."

Riza sighed again and looked at the man sat languidly before her, half buried in soap and wet fringe falling into his eyes. He looked so youthful out of uniform that Riza found it difficult to reconcile him with the dark eyed, unpredictable Colonel who commanded every ounce of attention within his own office walls and the thronging streets of Central. He caught her observation of him and his face fell into a curious gaze in return. They sat regarding each other for a few long moments before Riza capitulated and decided to play along with his game for a while. They would often find themselves doing this at his behest; dreaming up alternate lifestyles and distractions from their more serious and utterly inescapable duties and goals.

"I wouldn't have my baby at home that's for certain. How in the world did Gracia manage to do that?" She asked, grabbing the bar of soap from the ledge and lathering herself up a little too vigourously.

Roy had always guessed that there was something amiss between Riza and his best friend's wife. It was little occasions like this that confirmed his suspicions. He knew she would never be direct enough to voice any real dislike but it was fun to hear his Lieutenant being bitchy against her character none the less. All the more because she seemed to take a guilty pleasure in his amusement at her quiet and subtle scathing.

"She's just a natural mother I guess..." he said without meeting her eyes. 'That' he thought, 'is the bait.'

Riza scoffed at that, her annoyance showing clearly despite her best efforts to remain respectful. How did he manage to draw this kind of reaction out of her? "Oh yes, baking her apple pies and combing through that silly bob of hers... swell."

Roy threw his head back and laughed loudly, his heaving chest causing ripples to push across the surface of the water. She had bitten. "Riza!" He scolded playfully. "That lovely, devoted woman. How could you?"

Riza started smiling as well, the smile braking into a giggle and then a full on laugh as she locked on to Roy's black eyes dancing with something akin to an amused kind of pride at her small cruelty. She spoke through her laughter, mocking Hughes' polite wife and knowing that she was being mean without much reason. "Dear, let me get the strudel from the oven before I fetch your slippers and newspaper. My -" she had to take a breath for laughing. She could see Roy looking at her with complete surprise – half laughing and half gasping from behind the hand he pressed to his shocked mouth. "What a lovely spring morning! Just let me feed the birds and then we can all go to the park for some rounders and tea." She calmed herself a little. "Please."

Riza's role dictated that she had to be so serious and measured most of the time that she revelled in moments like this. She knew Roy hardly had reason to judge her for her cynicism – he practically taught her the tools of the trade.

"Riza -" he said, lifting his foot from the water and pushing it against her breastbone, pinning her to the head of the bath. "I'm shocked."

She smiled down at him, his face now half submerged in the water and grabbed his leg with both hands, rubbing the solid muscle of his calf firmly. A few bubbles popped up in the water in front of him and she could tell by the narrowing of his eyes that he was smiling.

Her thoughts turned serious then as the shadow of reality cast itself across their entertainment. She sat herself straighter in the water, her movement rousing Roy from his submerged state. "You want children?" She asked.

"Seems to be the done thing." Roy said simply, a flicker of cheekiness in the lines of his face.

"Roy -"

"Do you?" He asked quickly before she had a chance to finish her admonishment.

She huffed a little. This was always the way things went. Their relationship seemed to consist of a pattern of highs and lows strung together by their own tenacity. They would laugh and imagine together before their dreaming would snag on another impossibility. It scarcely even seemed suitable for her to call him 'lover', their relationship remaining necessarily secretive and therefore, unverified.

Maybe there was more to her disliking Gracia than an inexplicable notion. If Riza was honest with herself, she would perhaps find that jealousy was fixed at the centre of her mocking attitude towards the woman. The Hughes' lived their married life out in the open. They had a child and a piece of paper from the state that said 'this is love.' She and Roy had what? Clandestine love-making, bath times and furtive glances in an oblivious office. Even sex was dangerous for them – if she were ever to get pregnant – what then?

"Come here." Riza ordered and gestured that he turn his back to her. She grabbed the sponge and soaked it with suds. Speaking as she rested her cheek against the smooth, taut plane of his back, her arm reached round to wash at his chest. He could feel her lips move against his skin and a shudder rattled him in the heat and intimacy of their embrace. "You know it may never happen. That it probably won't, or not for a long time at least..."

Roy groaned and she held faster to him as she heard the sound rumble through his middle. "I know." He whispered after a long silence.

"We could never – not while -"

"Riza – I know." He spoke sharply over his shoulder, annoyed that she thought he wasn't getting it, that he was naïve somehow to their predicament.

Riza stopped in her machinations and set the sponge aside. She wrapped both her arms around him and pulled him back towards her. Neither of them spoke for a very long time. Highs and lows, peaks and troughs – it was how they worked. It was their story. It wouldn't do any other way.

Roy reached up and grabbed her hand, pulling it towards him in a frustrated, angry kiss. She could feel his tensed muscles relax then and she knew what was coming: another imagining, another light hearted distraction. It was their sedation, these little games they played.

"We'll have great kids." He said stubbornly but there was a lightheartedness there as well. They were climbing again.

She shifted her weight and the water lapped against the veined enamel of the bath tub. "Superlative."

"Better than Hughes'." He leaned back a little further and they slid across the bottom of the tub until they were propped against the taps at the head of the bath. The cold tap made Hawkeye gasp as it stroked her back. 'Better than Hughes' – she figured that must then be Roy's small jealousy.

"Certainly." She said through a dampened smile.

"Little blonde, gun toting maniacs."

She laughed. "Odd, dark-eyed savages."

"Perfect." He said, his sonorous voice and slope of his back making her legs clench around him.

"Sounds pretty dysfunctional actually..."

"Exactly."

She ran her hands up his back, over his neck and through his black hair, grabbing two handfuls as she went. Her fingers massaged him through the matted, wet strands.

"You know," she started, mischief thickening her voice, "if it so happens that we are ready to start a family..."

Roy only managed a moan through the sensations of her fingers working on his scalp.

"... we really want to make sure that we do the best we can … that we beat Hughes' and his brood beyond any doubt ..."

"Mmm-hmm."

Riza released her grip on his hair and leant round his shoulder to face his profile. A sleepy black eye slid sideways to regard her curiously.

"Practice makes perfect." She said plainly.

He jumped out of the bath so quickly that he took half the water with him.

Though any dream of normality remained distant, the distractions they afforded themselves – those little peaks – weren't all bad. Besides, apple strudel and tea in the park simply wouldn't do for Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang.

mmm bath time shenanigans ...

Ta!