AN: I own nothing. Enjoy!
Three nights. That's how long Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye had been up, staking out a general who allegedly had crooked officers. In those three nights, the two had found nothing. No activity or anything to indicate something was amiss. To Roy, it was a lost cause. That didn't mean, however, that his lieutenant was going to give up. Not by a long shot.
Roy watched as Riza peered through the key hole. For the past few nights, Roy and Riza had been inside a small closet, where the office lied just beyond the door. The office where the supposed corruption takes place. Roy watched as Riza looked through the small keyhole with the intense concentration of a sniper; the sniper Riza had been on the warzone. After a moment, Riza stepped back from the door and sat down next to Roy.
"Nothing", she said quietly. Although her voice had a hint of disappointment in it, her eyes had a set determination in them, a look Roy could just barely make out in the dimming light coming from under the door. Night was about to make its appearance for the fourth time in as many days. Roy grinned at her determination. He couldn't, however, keep his own feelings about this mission to himself.
"I'm beginning to think we did all this for nothing," Roy whispered.
"Nothing is ever for nothing. Our efforts always go toward something, even if that something isn't our intended goal."
For a moment, Roy said nothing as he thought this statement over. Finally, he asked, "so what you mean is...we're trying for something, always?"
Riza nodded. "For some, that thing is money. For others, it's power. Trying to move up," Riza added, giving her colonel a pointed look.
Roy stared up at the ceiling. "The only question is...can you keep your efforts on track? Make sure that you're not doing something for any other reason other than your intended one."
"Mmhmm," Riza pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. "Exactly."
The two fell quiet after that and, as the night grew deeper and the room beyond the door stayed silent, the toll of staying up for three nights finally got to them. It wasn't long before they had both fallen asleep.
When Roy woke up, he could see faint early morning light seeping through the bottom of the door. He realized with slight irritation that, once again, nothing had happened. When he went to move, Roy noticed that something was keeping him from doing so.
That was when Roy saw that Riza, still dead asleep, had her resting on his shoulder. He smiled at her serene expression and gently tucked a stray hair that had come loose from Riza's updo behind her ear.
In that moment, Roy realized that Riza was right. Sometimes our efforts did go towards unexpected things.