Devoted

Disclaimer: Never owned it, never will. Be glad.

Theme #1 - Bad Weather

Scarves, Trees, Anger Management

It was 8:23 AM, and Colonel Roy Mustang was late.

He was literally running down the sidewalk to East Headquarters, his raincoat pulled up over his head to shield him from the rain. As he neared the tall iron gates surrounding HQ, he could see a straight-backed figure standing expectantly, a green umbrella over its head. He froze as he saw the pale blonde hair drifting in the stormy wind.

It was Hawkeye.

And there he was, the superior that she was supposed to admire, even idolize (fat chance of that with Hawkeye), running around with his jacket over his head like some stupid-looking hood. He quickly straightened his raincoat and attempted to walk nonchalantly up the stairs.

"I saw that, sir," she said, a silent laugh playing around her lips.

Roy snorted.

She smiled.

"Why aren't you in the office?" he asked gruffly, the tough colonel once more.

"You have the keys, sir."

Roy groaned, feeling stupid again.

"Well, let's go inside," she said. She'd only taken a few steps toward the door when a particularly large gust of wind blew past, whisking off her red scarf.

"Oh!" she gasped, snatching at it. Her fingers missed by an inch and snagged empty air instead. She ran after it, tossing her umbrella aside. Mustang watched in amused astonishment.

"Sir, can you help me?" she asked over her shoulder, her tone more annoyed than usual.

He chuckled and chased after the flapping length of silken cloth with her. Once, twice, thrice it skimmed the ground. Each time they leapt at it - and missed. It drifted higher and higher...and got caught in a tree branch.

Roy gave a wordless cry of complete frustration as Riza's shoulders dropped in an exasperated slump. He hopped in vain a few times, knowing that it was far out of reach. She had to hide a grin behind her hand as she watched the froglike movements of her usually-cool commmanding officer. He looked at her, irritation in his face. He reached into his pocket, withdrew his ignition gloves and slipped them on his hands.

"Sir..." cautioned Hawkeye as he poised his fingers to snap.

"What?" he demanded, teeth clenched. He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened.

He snapped again.

Nothing.

"It's raining, sir."

Only then did Roy realize that his hair was plastered to his head, and he remembered that they were in the middle of a downpour. He took off his gloves and threw them onto the muddy ground, stomping on them.

Hawkeye laughed. "Temper, temper, Colonel," she teased. "Besides, if you incinerated the tree, you'd also manage to burn up my mother's scarf."

"Why did you wear the thing?" he asked, glaring at the fluttering silk.

"I felt like it."

Roy crossed his arms, mentally cursing the antics of women. Then he took a deep breath, walked up to the base of the tree, caught hold of a low-hanging branch, and began to climb.

"Sir?" Hawkeye asked, bewildered. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to get your scarf. What does it look like?" Mustang blinked rain from his eyes, going ever higher. There! He reached up, precariously straddling a lower branch, and yanked the scarf from its perch.

"I got it!" he called triumphantly, waving it back and forth like a flag on a battlefield.

Hawkeye waved back, stifling a rare outburst of laughter.

He made his way back down, a victorious smirk lodged on his lips, and handed it to her.

"Thank you, sir," she said, smiling. She folded it and slipped it into her pocket.

"You're welcome," he replied as they started back to the building. Riza had completely forgotten about her umbrella. "I order you to never wear a scarf again."

"Yes, sir," she replied, amused. "But you are in serious need of anger management, Colonel."

As the door to East Headquarters swung shut behind them, the rain continued to fall.