After filing Riza Hawkeye's paperwork, Damia took her own work and remained in her private office, listening to a Galicjan radio station. She did not want to brother with Roy, Falman, Havoc, and Breda if it was not necessary. They all had a lot of work to do in preparation for her absence next week. For Roy, she gave him an overview of his job as the biotech person and told him to spend the day looking over sword and pistol techniques to prepare for his training. She was glad to be left alone. Whenever she played the Galicjan radio, it was an audible "Do not disturb" sign in the office. To be sure that all understood that the "Do not disturb" was on, Damia would begin playing the radio loud enough so that the other officers could hear that it was on, and then turn the volume down so that no one could be disturbed as they worked.

Before Damia knew it, the time for lunch break had arrived. She waited until she was sure that the other four officers had left before leaving herself and heading to one of the break rooms. There was one room in particular that did not offer as much of a variety of food as the others. Instead of a cafeteria setting, it was simply a room with a few tables and a medium-sized refrigerator with some food choices. The majority of soldiers for this reason chose not to frequent it, so of course Damia always did. It was the closest to privacy that she could get outside of her personal office, so there was no way that she was going to brave the cafeteria.

She entered the room and turned on the stove to begin boiling some water to be used for coffee. Next to the stove was the refrigerator. Damia opened the door. Inside were some prepared salads, a large bowl of apples and pears, some strips of chicken meat, and sliced pumpernickel bread. She took one of the salads, a couple slices of bread, and a pear. As she waited for the water to boil before brewing herself some coffee, Damia rinsed and began to eat her pear.

She was in the room alone until Major Alex Louis Armstrong joined her. This was the case on most days. Usually, she and Alex would be the only ones frequenting this room at lunchtime.

"I'm making some coffee, do you want some?" she asked.

"Sure," Alex, a very tall, broad, and muscular blond in his mid-twenties replied. He went to the refrigerator and began to fix himself a sandwich with the salad ingredients, the chicken strips, and the bread. "How are you doing? You now have two more people to manage."

"It is what it is," Damia replied. "The way I feel about it makes no difference."

Alex sat down and took a bite out of his sandwich. He shook his head. "The unit I'm in, Basque Grand's unit, has that Zolf Kimblee. I think he may have psychotic tendencies and Grand appears amused by him. It's exhausting just being in the same room as Zolf. You never know if he may just snap and explode something for fun."

"That … does not sound good …" she said, not knowing exactly how to respond. She poured a brewed coffee for herself and one for Alex. She brought Alex his cup before returning to her spot leaning against the counter. "This won't help you but neither of my new people are like that."

Alex looked around the room to be sure that he and Damia were alone before speaking.

"Since we can, I want to say something, but I want it to securely be entre-nous. Sit down, Damia."

Damia took her lunch and sat across from him. "What is it?" she asked.

"These procedures make me uneasy," Alex said quietly. "Take this morning. Why weren't you allowed to choose your weapon? I've seen alchemists test non-alchemists before and they always had a choice of either sword or gun. Do you remember when I had to test Maes Hughes? I got to choose a sword. Then, your Riza Hawkeye is already a First Lieutenant? Who does she know?"

Damia shrugged. "I don't know. Her father did some research for the military, according to Hawkeye's papers. Sort of like what my father did and what Shou Tucker does for a living, from what I can tell."

Alex shook his head and took a sip of coffee. "I don't care if they're coming from this Academy Summer Program. I don't like this bringing in people by the carload. I heard it's happening in the other bases too. It's an Amestrian Youth Squad, I swear."

Before Damia could respond, loud footsteps burst through the doorway. In marched a tall woman in her late twenties with long, fine flaxen-blonde hair. She had a powerful, overbearing demeanor and a hard, icy face. The woman loudly walked over to the table Damia and Alex were sitting at and pounded her fist next to Damia.

"You made a joke out of me today, Elric!" she snipped. "Now it looks like I failed at training you, don't you think!?"

"Oh, God …" Alex muttered to himself. He looked like he was going to suffer a headache.

"I don't think my performance is so important that anyone is making a connection between my abilities and who trained me, Olivier." Damia said, hoping that her one-time boss would leave her alone.

"You will address me as Brigadier General when you piss me off!" Olivier snapped at Damia, who still had her eyes fixated on her lunch and did not look up once.

"Olivier, please," Alex began, beginning to hold his head. "We've all had a long week –"

Olivier slapped her younger brother on the back of his head. "Shut up, Alex!"

"Brigadier General, do you really find it fair that Damia was not given the option to use a sword?" he continued, hoping that what he was about to say could possibly sedate his fiery sister. "If she could have used a sword, she could have demonstrated all that work you put into her five years ago. You remember how slow Damia was before you trained her."

"That's right, sir," Damia agreed. It was true; she had always been slower than she probably should have been until she was trained by Olivier. Fencing was a hobby that Bernard could almost always defeat her at because he was faster. This was transformed into the opposite after training with Olivier.

There was a beat of silence. The iciness melted off of Olivier's face. "All that work …" she began. A gleam of anger flashed in her blue eyes. "All that work I did couldn't be showcased! So – Bradley didn't just want to make Elric look incompetent. I was on the chopping block as well!"

"Very possible," Alex said. "With a sword, Damia could have maybe blocked Hawkeye's shots."

"She could have done more than block! She could have hit the little blanks back at her!" Olivier exclaimed before turning to Damia. "I don't like this. Did you really have to enlist that girl as a First Lieutenant?"
Damia nodded as she chewed some salad greens. After swallowing, she asked, "With your talents, General, did you get the alchemist treatment of First Lieutenant when you were new?"

"No!" she bit back, not angry at Damia but angry at the circumstances. "I had to prove myself and work my ass up from the bottom!"

"That's why I'll say this again," Alex added quietly. "I don't like all these people coming in …"

"Colonel Elric,"

The three officers in the room turned their heads toward the door to see Riza Hawkeye having just entered. Upon meeting Damia's eyes, Riza approached the table. She stood next to Olivier and took a slip of paper out of her pocket. Damia could see that it was a voucher for the steak dinner for two at the Government Tavern.

"Lieutenant Hughes passed this along to me. He said that it was my prize for winning our fight," she said. "But I don't like red meat, so I thought I should ask you if you wanted it, sir."

"Thanks, but I'm not a fan either," Damia replied.

Immediately after Damia finished speaking, Olivier briskly snatched the voucher out of Riza's hand with a quick, "I do." She looked at the voucher, read what it said, and shifted her eyes toward her brother. "Dinner for two," she continued. "Looks like it's your lucky day, Alex. Tomorrow night, I say."

With a smile, Alex said, "That sounds great. I haven't had one of those steaks since –"

"Shut up, Alex," Olivier interrupted. She looked at the clock to check the time, then to Riza, who still stood beside her, and then to Damia. "Find me in my unit's office before you leave the base tonight, Elric. I want to have a quick chat with you. Man-to-man. Mano-a-mano."

After those words, Olivier turned on the heels of her boots and left. Damia and Alex began to finish the last bits of their lunches as Riza continued to stay at her spot, as if awaiting an order. The awkward air caused Damia to look at the clock and check the time herself. It was nearing the end of their lunch break. She would not have minded having the final minutes alone with Alex in case he wanted to add another comment on what exactly was going on in Basque's unit with the new Kimblee variable.

"Um, Riza, you can continue touring the base or even just go home," Damia said. She had never been in the situation of a junior officer awaiting direction not only during a lunch break, but during their own time off. "Like I told you before we filed your paperwork, technically you're dismissed."

"Is that an order, sir?" she asked.

After a short pause, Damia replied, "Um, yeah. Yes it is. Colonel to First Lieutenant. Go home."

"Yes, sir," Riza said before exiting the room.

The room was silent. Alex looked at Damia with an uneasy, puzzled expression on his face. He followed suit, gathering up his trash upon seeing Damia clean up herself.

"Damia," he said as he rose from his chair. "I don't know who's scarier, Kimblee or your Hawkeye. Her formality, her – her robotic ways … it isn't normal."

Damia shrugged. "I don't know. For now, I'm assuming that she's a little nervous, being new to the military and all. Doesn't want to make a mistake."

"That could be," Alex said as the two of them made their way out of the room. "Maybe it's just me making too much out of everything going on here." He chuckled. "For generations the Armstrong family have been made uneasy by new recruitees!"

Damia smiled. She was unsure as to whether or not Alex's family declaration was a good sign or a bad one. It could be good that he felt comfortable enough to relieve stress through his patriotic familial pride. However, it could be bad if one considered that enough stress was amassing inside Alex that he felt the need to release it.

She put her hand on Alex's arm before they split to their different areas of the base. "I'll see you later, Alex. Take it easy. You're going to have a big steak this weekend."

He closed his eyes for a moment and smiled. "Ah, yes …" Before they separated, he added an "Enjoy your weekend" and they both made their ways to their units.

That's right, Damia thought as the steak dinner reminded her of Olivier. I'll be meeting with her at the end of the day.

She already was eager to know what Olivier could possibly want to discuss with her.

The work day ended smoothly and to her great relief and satisfaction, almost all of the following week's available business was completed. At five o'clock, Damia dismissed her unit and informed Roy of his directions for Monday: to get to the office at eight like usual and that they'd begin their training from there. To her surprise, Roy appeared to be a bit beaten down from the day. It was quite the contrary to his awe and excitement upon receiving his pocket-watch that morning. Damia was not going to ask. Whatever was going on in his mind was neither her business nor her concern as long as he got to work on time on Monday and accomplished what needed to be accomplished during training. She had the sneaking suspicion that Breda and Havoc might have decided to pick on him.

Whatever, She thought as she set aside some papers for Hughes to take Monday morning. It's Roy's problem, not mine, and he has a whole weekend to snap out of it and not make it mine.

Damia locked the Unit 66A office and began to head down the hall toward Olivier's. She took out her pocket-watch to check the time. It was just a few minutes after five. Even though she was curious about this meeting with Olivier, she hoped it would not take too much time as she wanted to leave the base as soon as possible. As she slid her pocket-watch back into her jacket pocket, Damia was reminded of yet another task that needed to be put into play that weekend.

Note to self, She thought. Bernard, please be at my apartment so we can make arrangements to go to Galicja and have a fake pocket-watch made for Roy. Eye-Patch's little tracking device isn't going to tag me through Fire-Boy.

When she reached Olivier's unit's office, Damia turned the doorknob and let herself in. In the back of the room sat Olivier at her personal desk. There was a chair at the other side all prepared for their discussion.

"Lock the door," Olivier said.

Damia silently did so and sat down across from Olivier. A beat of dead air passed before Olivier began to speak. Her voice was quiet, calm, and serious – the contrary to her usual demeanor.

"I don't want this to be too long, either because I want to get the hell out of here, too," she said. "I know you feel the same way. You and I – we're more alike than I ever fathomed when you first showed up here."

"It seems every year gives us more in common."

"Which is why," she continued. "That I think we must form an allegiance. A secret allegiance. I'm beginning to think we're both at risk, Elric. Or, if not at risk, seen as a threat by a certain individual in power, if you catch me."

Damia nodded. "The E.P.," she said as she winked her left eye, the same eye that Fuhrer Bradley covered with his eye-patch.

"Correct. So, gentleman's agreement. If I notice something off-kilter, I alert you, and you do the same vis-à-vis me."

"Deal. And also, an established level of comfort and confidentiality upon one other thing …" Damia leaned forward over the desk. "Asking each other what we know and what we can carefully and safely find out about a culprit of arising suspicion." She leaned back to her original posture in the chair.

"Of course," Olivier replied. She then extended her hand. "Our pact is sealed, Damia."

A smile twisted on Damia's lips. She immediately caught onto the addition of Olivier's promise, which was referring to her by her first name, her preferred means of identification. She shook Olivier's hand, looked her straight in the eye, and said, "You've got it, General."

Olivier, also smiling with a collected triumph, rose from her desk. "Yes, you do understand my thought process more than the other oafs in this military. We will be a successful team. That's why The E.P. felt the need to break us up after only a little after a year of you being under my unit." She sniggered. "And to think I got such pleasure out of pestering you before you moved out of the Barracks."

"It's because I am half Galicjan that I know the ways of the Ice Queen," Damia said coolly in a Galicjan accent. She rose from her sat and asked in her normal voice, "Am I dismissed, General?"

"Yes," she replied. "Go home, Damia. Get the hell out of here."

With a casual salute, Damia left the room. In her mind she was beginning to sort through possibilities of whom to maybe ask Olivier about at a future date. Images of solders she was familiar with raced through her thoughts until one in particular refused to leave her. A soldier who arrived around three years ago, a man who appeared completely innocuous, perhaps, but also one who, like Alex Armstrong, maybe had so much on his plate that he needed to relieve himself of stress. He appeared so harmless, so friendly, yet obviously very good at his job. His job … did anyone really know exactly what his job entailed? Did he even have an assigned unit, or was he a floater? And if he was a floater, what was his purpose in the military and with whom would his immediate loyalty and obedience lie with?

The name of his soldier?

First Lieutenant Maes Hughes.