I'd like to say thanks for the kind reviews and support and I'd like to apologise for this chapter, it just feels like filler to me.
Disclaimer: FMA belongs to Arakawa
Roy threw open the doors dramatically and pulled the Lieutenant inside with him. As expected the other men were already at their desks waiting for paperwork to be delivered to them. They looked briefly shocked when the two burst open the doors, but then the look of understanding dawned on their faces as they saw the hand holding. Garand popped his head out of his office to see the commotion. His face was unreadable, it almost looked annoyed.
"Lt I believe you owe me some paperwork." He didn't bother with a greeting. He held his hand out waiting. The look of annoyance was very evident on his face, there were bags underneath his eyes.
Riza nodded and withdrew the paperwork she spent most of the night on from her bag. She handed it to him and with that Garand left without a word-back to his office. The two took their seats at their desks opposite each other.
Furey was the first to break the silence. "Congratulations you two! I'm really happy for you!" He had a hard time controlling his happiness.
"It took long enough, didn't it chief." Havoc said while nudging him with his elbow. "And here I was thinking you didn't have the guts."
"This was long overdue. But at least you finally made a move." Falman spoke a slight smile on his wrinkled face.
"It was bound to happen in the end. We all knew it would happen." Breda said loudly, a cheeky grin on his face.
"What? How long have you been speculating our relationship?" Roy said quite shocked at his subordinates' awareness. Riza sat back and watched them all slightly amused.
"Since our first day." They said in unison. No look of doubt whatsoever.
Roy and Riza looked at each other and laughed.
The rest of the day went quickly and smoothly. Roy would insist on holding her hand every possibility. While walking down corridors several officers offered their congratulations and smiled. Riza expected Garand to say something insulting but he had isolated himself in his office all day. She really wondered what made the man so aggressive and discriminative against women.
Lunch break came and Roy and Riza went their separate ways. Roy went with the rest of the team to slack about in the office whereas Riza went to the range to see her friend before she went on a trip.
The men slouched in their chairs and leant their feet on the desktop.
"So bored. Where's the excitement?" Havoc groaned, his cigarette had been put out in an ashtray on his desk.
"I wonder how much paperwork we'll get this afternoon." Breda commented as he shoved a large cheese sandwich in his mouth.
"Can't you burn it for us Chief?" Havoc said still groaning.
"The Lieutenant would kill us." Furey said he had pulled out a technology book and was avidly reading it.
"Breda, pass me that sandwich." Mustang held out his hand.
"No way sir, I made this myself." He looked at the sandwich with a hungry grin.
"All the more reason to hand it over. You've just had lunch and you're eating again."
"Yeah buddy, all that cheese can't be doing any good to you." Havoc further encouraged him, he was interested as to why Mustang wanted the cheese infested sandwich. Would he eat it? Breda reluctantly threw the sandwich towards him.
Mustang took the sandwich and placed it on his desk then clapped his hands together and passed them on top of the sandwich. It morphed into 4 round golden coloured balls. 4 balls of pure cheese. The other men were watching him closely trying to work out his thoughts. Without warning he picked one up and hurled it at Havoc. It hit him on the side of his face, and then slid down his uniform. Before the others could react he threw the other balls at them. Falman got hit in the chest, Furey got hit straight in the face and Breda dodged the ball but had to fall out of his chair to do so. The ball flew at hit the wall with a loud slap.
"You're dead Mustang! Cheese stinks!" Havoc ripped the ball of his uniform and tried to throw it back at Mustang. Luckily he had pre-empted the attack and thus caught the ball of cheese and hurled it back at Havoc this time at his forehead. The office filled with screams and wet slapping sounds and the balls of cheese were hurled around the room like snowballs. Mustang kept transmuting the balls into many smaller ones. Furey couldn't see and ended up walking head first into the wall and then fell back onto his rear end. Some cheese from his face got distributed on the wall. Mustang saw this and quickly snatched up some cheese as he was running out.
"Nice one Furey, you are always helping me." He continued to pelt cheese at Havoc's head. Cheese flew all around the room, hitting the window, sticking to the carpet and getting stuck in everyone's hair.
(-)
"Sigh, I'm going to miss being here." Rebecca said as she shot continuous rounds at the black silhouette.
"But you're going travelling, isn't that what you always wanted." Riza was going to miss her best friend, but didn't regret not being able to go with her.
"Yeah, for 3 months." She looked sad but excited at the same time.
"Make sure to take lots of pictures." Riza patted her on the back as they walked towards the female locker room.
"Forget about me. Tell me about these rumours about you and Colonel Mustang." She grinned at Riza, a firm grip on her arm to stop her from running.
"He's not a Colonel anymore Rebecca."
"Yeah, I know. But what about these rumours that you two are together." She shot Riza a sneaky look.
"They're true." She said bluntly and placed her shooting rifle inside the locker and locked it.
"WHAT! Really! And you didn't tell me first!" She shouted grumpily at Riza as she began walking away.
"I'll call and tell you later Becca, I've got to get back to the office and make sure those guys are behaving themselves." She waved and walked briskly towards the office.
When the elevator reached their floor, she could hear laughing and shouting. It wasn't a good sound, she got closer and closer. She could here Havoc's voice shouting at Roy and Roy taunting him. Breda and Falman could be heard cheering them on and Furey's protests could be heard.
She opened the door expecting the worst and a ball of cheese flew and hit her in the face. It quickly slid off and onto the floor. A small amount remained on her cheek. The room went silent.
"Havoc you jerk! You hit Hawkeye." Mustang stood up and rushed towards her wiping the cheese off her face.
"I'm sorry Hawkeye, I'm really sorry. I meant to hit Mustang but I missed." Havoc begged for forgiveness on his knees. Hawkeye's expression was unreadable.
"How was Lunch, Riza?" Roy said nervously trying to distract her from the situation. Her eyes shot everywhere from the melted cheese in the carpet, to yellow oozing in the men's hair to her desk filled with lumps of cheese.
"What did you do to the office?" She said through her teeth.
"What did you say Lieutenant?" Havoc lifted his head. He looked at her hoping she wasn't too mad.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO THE OFFICE!" She withdrew her gun in anger and fired shots at her fellow co-workers. Several at the ground in front of Havoc and around the heads of the other subordinates who were backed against the wall. Furey shrieked in fear and the others remained frozen in fear, Mustang removed his hands from Riza.
A hand came down hard on the Lieutenant's shoulder.
"What do you think you're doing Lieutenant!" Garand appeared behind her. His eyes filled with anger. "Of course the men deserve punishment for their childish behaviour but you have no right to turn you gun on them and open fire at them. What do you think superiors will think when they found out you shoot at lower ranking officers than you. You are abusing your power, woman! Your behaviour is disgraceful."
Roy couldn't stand there and listen to the things being said to Hawkeye. "With all due respect sir, Lt Hawkeye often fires warning shots at us to keep us in line and disciplined. It gets us working and keeps us on our toes prepared for an enemy attack." He glared at Garand, he had no right to discriminated the Lt because of her Gender or blame her for the entire situation. "Also this situation is entirely our fault, the Lieutenant-"
"I didn't give you permission to speak soldier." He turned to look at Roy you could tell he was pretty angry. "All of you go clean yourselves up, you look like a bunch of pathetic babies not soldiers. When you are done Lieutenant, you will return and clean up this entire mess alone and the men will finish their paperwork."
"Yes sir." They all said bitterly and they trudged to the locker room to clean the cheese off their faces, out of their uniforms and out of their hair.
(-)
"I'm really sorry for all the trouble we caused Riza." Roy was sitting on one if the locker room benches, Riza hovering over him with a comb; trying to remove the cheese that had clumped to his dark locks.
She sighed. "I guess you guys never change. You always find some way to stir up some trouble, I think it's about time I learnt how to handle the situation." She brushed the cheese lump out of the comb and stroked Roy's hair.
"No, you don't need to change, after all I love seeing the rash side of you. You terrify me but I love seeing you drop your disciplined mask and just act impulsively." He bent his head back to look at her admiringly and she smiled back. "But I think while Garand is in command, its best that you try and act rationally." She nodded and continued her task.
Unknowing to them, the other subordinates were watching them from a distance. They had left to wash the cheese out of their uniform, Mustang and Hawkeye didn't need to because they had avoided getting hit on their body. The men grinned as they watched their superiors being affectionate.
"They are so adorable." Furey whispered as he put his jacket back on, fresh from the tumble dryer- cheese free.
"Why don't they just get married already?" Havoc said impatiently.
"The Lieutenant would have to leave the military for that, and I doubt she'll do that." Breda said smugly and quite happy at that fact. They all were. Neither could imagine their team without Hawkeye or Mustang, it wouldn't be the same.
"Do you think we should interrupt and get back to the office? Garand will be angry at Hawkeye if we take too long." Falman stated, his hand was already on the handle.
"What is that guy's problem? All he's done since he arrived is shout at Hawkeye and blame her for everything." Havoc said angrily as they continued watching the couple.
"Maybe he doesn't like the look of her or something." Furey suggested.
"I'm thinking he's discriminating against her because she's a woman." Breda stated.
Havoc spat. "Another sexist officer, where do all these bastards come from?"
"At least the Lieutenant has the Major sticking up for her." Furey still had difficulty thinking of Mustang as a Major.
"And us."
(-)
Hawkeye was on her knees scraping the cheese off the carpet, the cheese clung to the carpet fibres and refused to budge. The other men watched her in sympathy as they worked on paperwork. They had been given direct orders not to help. Animosity was quickly rising in the team. Riza sighed again as she continued scrapping the cheese off the floor. She eventually gave up and went over to Major Mustang's table to scrape the cheese off the side of his desk.
Roy quickly grabbed her hand when she tried to touch it. He clapped his hand together then touched the cheese spot which decomposed into a pile of milk. He then clapped again and evaporated the spot. Riza watched him in awe and admiration. He wasn't allowed to help her, but he still found a way to help her in some way. He then pulled out two sheets of paper with different arrays drawn on them.
He pulled her close and whispered into her ear. "Use this one to deconstruct into milk and this one," He pointed to the left piece of paper. "to evaporate the water in it. The paper's been set to react with substances that touch the centre circle. Just make sure the cheese touches the centre. It'll be faster." The last comment had a hint of humour in it. She kissed his cheek quickly. "Thank you." Riza went back to her work. She had to admit that using the arrays made the job a lot faster, but she had to be subtle when using it in front of the door to Garand's office. His door was wide open.
Once she had finished, she began the paperwork for the afternoon. The office was silent apart from the sound of scribbling and that's the way it stayed until about 5 minutes to 5, when Havoc threw down his pen.
"How about we all go out tonight and get drunk?" Havoc said a smirk in his voice.
"Whatever for?"
"Well we can reminisce the past few years working together." A creepy grin appeared his face. "And we definitely should celebrate the Chief and Hawkeye getting together." Roy and Riza face palmed and remained silent.
"I've got nothing else to be doing." Falman nodded agreeing with him.
"Sound's good." Breda had a big smile on his face.
"I don't want to get drunk." Furey muttered.
"That's fine Furey we'll get you a coke or something." Havoc reassured him. "So what about you Chief? Lieutenant?"
"It's fine with me." Roy said as he put his pen back in its pot.
"I'll come too." The men rose but were interrupted.
"Lieutenant, you need look over these reports before you leave." Garand appeared already dressed in a coat and hat. He dumped a large stack of papers on her desk. "Don't leave until everything is done." Then he bid farewell to the men and left.
"Bastard, putting all this on you at the last minute." Roy spat. "Want me to stay and work on these with you?" He had placed a shoulder on the Lieutenant.
"No, it's fine I'll handle it alone. You guys enjoy yourselves."
"No we'll all stay with you Lt. That piles too big for one person." Havoc had already begun removing his coat.
"No you guys go out and enjoy yourselves."
"No we-"
"If you don't go, so help me, I'll shoot you out." She said bluntly. With that they slowly agreed and left the Lt alone.
(-)
Roy got home about half 10 after an amusing night out with the guys. Havoc and Breda had gotten into another fight with an old woman, resulting in them with very bruised egos and heads. He had to admit that the absence of Hawkeye was very weird, they were always together.
He went over to his phone and dialled Riza's number hurriedly. He tapped his hand impatiently on the coffee table as he waited from an answer.
"Hello?" Her voice sounded tired.
"Riza, Just checking that you were home."
"I just got back." The sound of Black Hayate barking could be faintly heard.
"So did I."
There was a brief silence.
"How was your evening?"
"It was good. Havoc and Breda lost in a fight with an old woman." His voice was laced with laughter.
"What is with those boys and old women?"
Roy laughed slightly and then became serious again. "It would have been better if you could have been there." There was a sigh and she agreed with him. She spent a lot of time thinking about their relationship and what would happen in the future. All her possible scenarios had left her depressed.
"Do you want me to come over and keep you company?" He said pulling her out of her thoughts.
"No." She said briefly, shutting her eyes. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"What happens to us once you regain your old position? The higher ups won't like you being in a relationship with your subordinate and you can't afford to stay in the same position you are now."
There was a sigh on the other side. "I've thought about the possibilities, I guess we come stay together and arrange to have you working under Grumman or General Armstrong, they would treat you right, but you would have to move away." There was a sad tone in his voice and Riza herself wasn't happy about being transferred. "Or, we could publicly break-up but maintain a secret relationship."
There was silence again. "That sounds like a good idea, but what if you get caught?"
"We'll just have to be extra careful. Besides I hope to reach the top before we get caught and by then I can change the fraternization laws."
Riza chuckled. "Thought of everything, haven't you General."
He chuckled back. "Of course and it's not General anymore, but it will be soon."
"Thank you Major. I'm going to go now." She said a smile in her voice.
"Okay, Goodnight Riza."