Title: The Closet With an Open Door
Author: Tiamat's Child
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Word Count: 250
Rating: K
Characters/Pairing: Broche, Ross
Summary: Broche probably would have seen it earlier, if it had occurred to him to look.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Written for fma_fic_contest at livejournal, prompt 23, "secrets".
The Closet With an Open Door
Broche trotted up the street in the wet evening. The sun had traveled below the height of the city while he'd been buried in the public records room at the courthouse, but the rain that had been falling slowly and deliberately all day was falling just as slowly and just as deliberately as when he'd shook his umbrella out and stepped inside. He was footsore and his eyes burned from bad light, but he had the information Major Armstrong had sent him to find, and barely felt the cobbles at all.
Under the street lamp outside headquarters a tall woman, made taller by her elegant posture and the long sweep of her skirt, stood talking to a short soldier. Broche swung out of his way across the square, judging from long experience at eavesdropping the angle that would let him listen and maybe recognize his comrade, but not intrude directly. "It's no trouble," the woman was saying. She had one hand laid over the soldier's hands on the handle of a basket. "It's not far. Besides, I wanted to see you. I missed you this morning."
The soldier laughed, low and gurgling. Broche blinked. He recognized that laugh.
"I missed you too," the soldier said. Broche knew that voice, and all the steady kindness in it. "I'm sorry I didn't come in. It's because of a case. I'll do better tomorrow."
Broche stood where he was, surprise splashing over him as Maria Ross turned her face up for a kiss.