Author's Note: Hmm… I haven't updated this since August. How sad.

Disclaimer: I don't own it, so leave me alone.

"I know that something is going on." Havoc slammed his tray down on the cafeteria table.

The others looked up at him in curiosity. "What are you talking about now?" Breda said this between mouthfuls of macaroni and cheese.

"Mustang, of course. He's been acting even weirder lately."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Fuery looked up from his lunch. "I haven't seen him much lately."

"Exactly!" Havoc pointed at a confused Fuery. "Yet another example; he hasn't come to the lunchroom lately either."

"I don't blame the guy, really." Breda had just discovered a large chicken bone in his macaroni. Falman looked down at his equally unappealing lunch, and then decisively pushed the tray back.

"And what about this Rosie he told us about?" Havoc put air quotes around the word Rosie, and nobody was quite sure why. "Since when has he not wanted to brag about his latest lady friend?"

"I dunno, maybe he's serious about her." Fuery looked thoughtful.

"Yeah, right." The others murmured in agreement.

A few floors above the cafeteria, a quieter lunch was being eaten. Roy and Riza were sitting on the couch in his office, eating Chinese take-out. Riza had somehow mastered the ability to use chopsticks, but after a few frustrating minutes of dropping pieces of orange chicken, Roy had dug the fork out of its plastic covering. Now they sat in comfortable silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts.

"Roy?"

"Hmmm…" His concentration was fixed upon an elusive water chestnut.

"What are your plans now?"

"Finishing my food."

Riza sighed at her boyfriend's inattention. "No, I mean… What are your plans for the State now? Now that the Fuhrer and the rest are gone."

He looked up at this, still chewing. "I honestly don't know. I've thought about it, but there's not much to do. Maybe I think better under pressure."

Riza nodded, and the silence was back.

"Roy?"

"Hmmm…"

"Let's go out to dinner tonight."

He looked up. "Sure, did you have a place in mind?"

"There's this place a few blocks from the apartment that I know." She neatly wiped her mouth with a napkin, and put it in the empty container on her lap. "It's called Nunquam."

"That's a strange name."

"They're supposed to have excellent food though. It's a very fancy place; I think they have a black-tie dress code."

"A place called Nunquam with a black-tie rule. Interesting."

"Anyway… If we're going, I need to get something to wear."

"You're going shopping?" Roy sounded nervous all of a sudden.

"Yes."

"Am I coming with you?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"Okay. Great." Roy's relief was a little too obvious, and he got an icy glare for it.

"I'll be going now." Riza threw her food container away and stood up, smoothing out her already starched uniform.

"Wait; lunch isn't over yet. Let's do something interesting."

Riza raised a suspicious eyebrow, wondering what he had in mind. "Go on."

"Breda got me a chess set for Christmas, and it's been sitting on this shelf ever since. Let's play." Roy reached up to grab a rectangular box from the highest place on one of the bookcases.

Soon the pair was seated cross-legged on the carpet, the pieces spread out on the checkered board. As much as he hated to admit it, Roy was losing horribly. Several black pieces, including the queen, were already sitting off of the board on Riza's side, the victims of his careless moves. He made a mental note to get Breda a puppy for his birthday.

"Check."

Roy moved the king out of harm's way. Or so he thought.

"Checkmate."

Riza was looking right at him, a faintly victorious smile hovering about her lips. He scanned the board for a way out, but found none. He had lost the game, and very quickly as well.

"I should have guessed you'd be naturally good at something like this."

Riza, who was repacking the board and pieces, looked up. "I'm not."

"You're telling me you're not good at chess?"

"Not naturally, no. Breda taught me how." She put the box on his desk. "He told me that without the queen around, it gets much harder for the king to survive. It's not impossible, of course, but it is hard. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board, and the king is the most limited in movement except for the pawns. Seems strange, doesn't it?"

"It does." Roy was already planning a strategy for the next time they played.

"Anyway, I'd better be going. Can you pick me up from this address in about three hours?" She hastily wrote the address of a clothing store on the unused pad of paper on Roy's desk. The pen clicked with a crisp snap as it closed, and she handed the sheet to him.

He clasped the paper in his hand, as well as hers. Roy pulled her close, and they kissed in the privacy of his office. They broke apart soon, though, and she headed for the door.

"Bye, Riza."

"I'll see you soon," she replied, and the door shut behind her.

"You know, he really should consider my smoking room idea." Havoc mused as he lit a cigarette.

He, Breda, Falman, and Fuery were in the huge office that they still shared, despite the fact that they now ranked high enough to have their own offices. The company was nice, and the room was familiar. With no work to do, they had chosen to play cards instead. Right now, they were engaged in a fierce game of Go Fish.

"Whatever, Havoc. Got any threes?" This was Falman.

"Go fish. You know what's weird?"

"No, what?" Fuery.

"Mustang lives about two minutes from here, and yet he's been late on and off for months now."

The others groaned; they were tired of Havoc's suspicions.

"Just leave it alone, man. Got any fives?" said Breda.

"Go fish," replied Fuery. "You know, if anyone has the right to be late, it's got to be Hawkeye."

Havoc looked away from the dying cigarette in his hand. "Why's that?"

"She lives practically on the other side of the city. If anyone less responsible lived there, they'd be late all the time."

At that moment, something clicked in the back if Havoc's mind, but he tried hard to keep his face expressionless. He succeeded in this a little too well, and the others stared at him questioningly.

"Everything okay, Havoc?"

"Yeah… sure. I'm fine. I've never been better."

"Then why are you still holding that?"

He looked to his hand, where Fuery has gestured, and found that the fire of his cigarette had nearly reached his skin. He hurriedly ground it into the ashtray.

They went back to playing cards, but Havoc wasn't really paying attention. He was too busy trying to decide whether or not he had just learned the true identity of Rosie.

For some reason, Roy had been feeling nervous ever since Riza had left to go shopping. He had tried to deny it, for Central was a fairly safe place and he had no logical explanation for how he felt. And yet, he had a strange and ominous tingle in his spine, almost like a bad omen. The more he ignored it, the stronger it became. Looking for a distraction but reluctant to do actual work, he set up the chess board and started moving both the black and white pieces. It wasn't as fun as playing with Riza, but it still helped to pass the time. And the tingle seemed to subside.

It had been almost an hour since Riza had gone when a barely noticeable tremor shook the entire HQ, followed sound similar to muffled thunder. The tingle in Roy's spine started up again, even stronger that before. He walked briskly to the window, but saw nothing at first. A little boy on the street below was walking with a woman, presumably his mother. The boy suddenly pulled on her arm, and pointed into a direction that was not visible from the office window. She gazed where the boy had indicated, and Roy thought he saw a flash of terror cross her face. But then it was hidden, and she scooped the child up in her arms, and began quickly back the way she had come. Away from the direction in which he had pointed. Away from the thunder. The tingling refused to be ignored now.

Still at the window, Roy heard sirens blaring nearby, saw ambulances racing towards the thunder.

There was a sharp knock at the door just then, but whoever was outside didn't bother for an answer. Roy turned around to see a young raven-haired woman entering, looking more than a little panicked. "General Mustang?"

"Yes." He found that his voice was shaking as much as hers, and struggled to pull together some composure. "What's happening out there?"

"There's been… there's been a gas explosion in southern Central. We don't know the details yet, but… it's safe to assume that there will be injuries, if not casualties. Your help was requested, sir. I have to inform others now." And with that, the woman left as quickly as she had entered.

Roy barely paused to grab his jacket before leaving the office, slamming the door behind him. As he jogged down the long hall that led to the elevator and the stairs, something crumpled in one of the pockets. Mystified, he took it out, and found a small piece of paper, and on the paper the address of a clothing store in Central. It was written in familiarly neat print. Riza's handwriting. Actually, Roy realized, he had heard of the place before. Next door to the clothing place was a bookstore he used to frequent, back when he liked to walk down to southern Central.

The hallway seemed to spin slightly as Roy stopped dead, realizing the significance of the store's location. The fingers that held the paper tingled, and a relentless horror began to rise. Thoughts of what hope told him was not true, what common sense told him was a definite possibility, and what fear told him had already happened forced Roy to pass the elevator that was being impossibly slow, to instead take the stairs down to the ground floor, to forgo the military cars for his own, and to drive far beyond the speed limit towards the chaos in the southernmost part of the city.

Author's Note: Please review. There's probably only one chapter after this one, two if I feel like being ambitious. Which I don't. Ciao for now.