I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.

All heads turned to the door of Colonel Mustang's office as said man and his female subordinate entered the room, guffawing and joking like the best of friends, amazing Roy's subordinates and the Elrics who were already in the room. Riza's arm was around her superior's shoulders and a grin was plastered across her face equally as much as it was the darker-haired man.

"Ah, Colonel, your stories are truly hilarious," Riza complimented as she slipped her arm from around his torso. "Unfortunately, I need to go and change into uniform; there's one in my locker," she announced and smiled kindly with a slight giggle. The smile was reciprocated by Roy as she went away.

Everyone else wore a stunned look.

Nothing was said for a few minutes as Roy went to his desk merrily and sat down before drumming his pen on the desk, and everyone went back to working.

"I always used to think she was an unsmiling killjoy, but she's really fun and nice," Roy finally commented and beamed.

"Careful, chief; you don't want her hearing that," Havoc cautioned with a nervous chuckle at the off chance that the comment had been heard by the blonde woman of which he spoke.

"But she is really nice and friendly! Plus, she thinks I'm funny. I'd like to think we've built an even stronger rapport between us. She genuinely likes my company. She listens to what I have to say, she admired my sociability and interaction with citizens, she even had her arm around me. I truly hope I hope I'm not jumping the gun here, but I think yet another woman has succumbed to the great Mustang—Woof! I'm a dog of the Military!—charm." The beam was replaced with the Mustang trademark smirk and eyes rolled before returning back to whatever work each was doing. They all knew Hawkeye well enough to know that she wouldn't just fall to the man's feet like that. She was composed, calm, professional…

"Plus, she made me breakfast and slept with me."

The comment had been so offhand that no one was even certain that it had been said. But jaws still dropped wide open of the three oldest men, Falman, Breda and Havoc; cheeks tinted for the next two youngest, Fuery and Ed, and the youngest of all's armour merely rustled as he cringed. All of their eyes widened though, regardless of age.

How long the silence lasted for, only Roy could have told, for the shock seemed to temporarily freeze their brains. And before anyone got the chance to importune, the door opened and Hawkeye entered, dressed in a crisp and clean blue uniform.

Mustang stood as she entered and walked towards the doorway. "I'm just going to go to the bathroom," he then informed Riza before leaving the room. A heavy sigh escaped the woman before she looked up and noticed all of the flabbergasted expressions on the faces of the others. A questioning look was thrown in their direction, but no one took up the offer and instead returned to their activities, too afraid to enquire about the newly received information. Or not initially, at least, as curiosity eventually got the better of a certain blonde-haired smoker.

"So… How is it going with the Colonel?" Havoc queried as he gnawed madly at the cigarette balancing between his teeth. An overwhelming sense of trepidation came over him, fearing for his life just in case Hawkeye caught on to exactly what he was implying by his question. He was fearful of the dark expression that clouded over her face; he feared how her reddened eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as she looked back at him, and, by now, just as everyone else in the room, feared that a certain man named Jean Havoc was going to be erased from existence entirely.

"It's going horrendously," Riza returned, stressing the word so much that it sounded as if she was about to burst into tears. "Please, if there's a plan B, can we switch to it?" She staggered over to her desk wearily and sat down.

"I'm so tired. I'm tired because I haven't had any sleep and I'm tired of the Colonel. I'm tired of the absolutely ludicrous fables he tells me about himself. I'm tired of having to laugh at them even though they're not funny in the slightest. I'm tired of being around him and having to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. I'm tired of having to pretend to listen to him. I'm tired of the amount of times he flirted with every single woman that we passed on the way here, and I don't even think that's because of the hypnosis! Regardless, even the normal Colonel wasn't this bad." Her forehead met the desk with a hard thud and her arms came around her head, blocking out as much light as she could get them to. "I just want to go to sleep. I don't want any disturbances. If even one minute annoyance disturbs me…"

"I'm back," Mustang announced from the doorway before striding proudly into the room. A faint groan came from the exhausted woman but her head didn't lift.

"And Major Armstrong came too."

Now the groan of disappointment came from all of those in the room as the large man came into view, a large stack of papers cradled in his arms.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye, I brought you the papers, as you requested," Armstrong boomed. The woman had no choice but to sit up and salute the muscular man.

"Thank you, sir," she droned as the papers were set down on her desk and her keys on top.

"Riza," Roy called and smiled at the woman.

"What?" came the sharp reply as tired eyes looked to the dark-haired man, but his smile didn't falter.

"I was going to get some coffee," he continued obliviously, "do you want one, too?"

Normally, Hawkeye would have been touched by this gesture, however after not having slept in the last how many days and the last few hours she'd had to spend with her superior, her resentment for him soared over any other emotions she could possibly feel right now.

"No, thank you; I just want to go to sleep," she responded, forcing herself as best as possible to remain pleasant, albeit it was indeed becoming a tremendous task.

Roy scoffed. "Work isn't a place for sleeping, Lieutenant," he reprimanded.

Everyone watched the scene before them, completely astounded. Hawkeye's jaw clenched perceptibly, as did her fists. Her chest rose and fell at a quickening pace. She was a bull and Roy was a piece of red cloth flailing innocently in the wind.

Where the hypocritical man once stood, Riza only saw a flashing red target.

Riza got out of her seat.

Riza started a slow approach to Roy.

Fortunately, a firm hand on her shoulder held her back; a hand that belonged to the Second Lieutenant that had previously asked about the current relationship between his two superiors. "He's just joking, right, Colonel?" Havoc assured and looked to said superior, nodding subtly.

"Well, actually—," he began, but the smoker cut him off once again.

"Yes, you were," Havoc insisted.

Roy nodded with understanding. "Yes, I was…"

"Precisely, so you, Lieutenant, should go back to your desk and rest, okay? I'll go with the Colonel to get some coffee."

It took Hawkeye a few seconds to get herself calm once again before nodding her head and returning to her seat and assuming a restful position. She would end up killing someone if she didn't get some sleep. She really would.

"Shall we, Sir?" Havoc asked and started towards the door, thankful he'd managed to prevent such a disastrous situation from arising. Both he and Mustang left the room, leaving the others in the room with the clearly volatile woman.

"Remind me never to cross the Lieutenant," Ed whispered quietly to Al, who merely nodded in agreement. The wrath of the Lieutenant, Ed had discovered, was something he wouldn't wish upon anyone. Not even Mustang.

The two brothers had seized the next ample opportunity to escape the room and fled to the library. While it had become Ed's obligation to stay and see that no disaster came from the situation he had created, it was not to say that he and his brother couldn't at least do some research. They hid away in the library for a few hours until it was lunch time. Had Al kept a closer eye on the clock, he would have gone slightly earlier to the canteen to get his brother some food, but it seemed that now he would just have to work his way through the masses of people that tended to gather when lunch began. It wasn't that he couldn't easily get through a crowd with his size; it was just that sometimes he ended up accidentally barging into people while trying to weave among the soldiers. So, he left his brother, who had his head stuck in a book, as to quickly get him some food and then return.

Al was a good boy, a boy who respected others a heck-of-a-lot more than his older brother. However, it was near impossible not eavesdrop in on the conversations that some were having within the canteen with everyone so closely huddled together, but perhaps it was fortunate. He was merely minding his own business and waiting in the queue when he heard the conversation of two women behind him.

"Hey, did you hear about Colonel Mustang and that blonde subordinate of his? Y'know, the really, really short one?"

"You mean about the transmutation? Yeah, I heard that! I thought it was pretty gutsy of him to admit it, if it's true."

"It is true! John told me and he said he heard it straight from the horse's mouth!"

It was at this point that the suit of armour turned around to them.

"Excuse me," the polite voice rang out, "but I was wondering what it is that you've heard about my broth—that short alchemist."

The two women looked up at the towering suit of armour who had requested to hear what they were talking about and leaned in closely.

"You know the one we're talking about? Well I heard that Colonel Mustang performed a transmutation on him that was supposed to make him taller, but made him even shorter instead, which is why he's as short as he is now!"

"Is that so…?" Al returned slowly. "Wow...Please excuse me," he said quickly then hurried off back to the library, forgetting all about retrieving lunch for his brother.

Meanwhile, Edward had finished reading the section he'd been interested in one of the books and left the desk at which he read to go and find another that might help. He went to a bookshelf near to where he'd been sitting and put the book he'd just read back then scanned the shelf for another. However, he too couldn't help but overhear a nearby conversation; a conversation which was being held just on the other side of the bookshelf.

"Oh my gosh! You'll never guess what Gina just told me," a female voice whispered excitedly.

"What, what?!" another voice came, her own excitement piqued by the news she was about to receive.

"Well, you know Colonel Mustang?"

"God, what woman doesn't?"

The two took a moment for a quick overly-zealous giggle before the first of them who had spoken started again.

"Well, Gina told me that Brenda told her this."

"Told you what? Told you what?!"

"Gina said that Brenda says that Mustang told someone, who told Francis, who thought she'd told Jason's sister but it turned out not to be Jason's sister but that girl who looks like her, who told Gemma…"

"Uh huh."

"Who told Daisy, who told someone, who told someone else, who told David's superior, who was overheard on the phone by Rosie, who told the girl who is her sister's friend's mother's brother's daughter; you know the one in Accountancy?"

"Yeah…"

"Who told someone else, who told either Hannah or Kerry, who told someone, who told Marie, who told someone's ex—maybe Mark's; I don't know,—who told Sue, who told Brenda, who told Gina, who told me that…"

"Yeah…" The anticipation in the woman's voice was high, made apparent by the shrill pitch she encouraged her friend in. Ed just wondered how she'd managed to keep up…

"That…Colonel Mustang…"

"Yeah…!"

"Has…"

"Uh huh…!"

"…A huge..."

"Ahhh!" Ed contributed to the conversation and covered his ears as he ran away from the shelf and out of the library, gaining many shushes from his cry.

"What the hell was that about?!" he found himself questioning with ragged breaths from having dashed away with such haste from the conversation. Though from what he assumed, he really didn't want to know.

"Brother!" Ed heard called from where he stood in the corridor and turned his head to see his silver sibling heading towards him.

"Al! Ugh, you do notwant to know what I just heard about the Colonel," the blonde began, but Alphonse interjected.

"You've heard something about the Colonel too?!"

"Yeah! Is it what you've heard?"

Edward shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know…What did you hear?"

"Apparently the Colonel is telling people that he once performed a transmutation on you and it's the reason for your…lack of stature." Al tried to masterfully manipulate the delicate phrase, hoping that his brother would not overreact. He thought it had actually worked for a second, as Edward made no movement. But then his expression darkened somewhat. His eyes narrowed. His fists clenched. His brow furrowed. It was clear that it was too late to try and remedy what Al had just told Ed.

"He said what?!" the small State Alchemist shrieked before storming off in the direction of Mustang's office, rendering Al's attempts to pacify him futile.

Inside Mustang's office, things were finally going well. Hawkeye had gone to the recreation room to rest, not being able to stand even staying in the same room as her superior when she was so angry with him. The rest of Mustang's subordinates were working hard on completing the increased load of documentation, what with having to do some of Mustang's own work. The Flame Alchemist himself, who had pledged to help out after stating that that 'the amount of work being given to them was inconceivable' without even realising it was their fault they were doing so much in the first place, was idly doodling in the corner of one of the papers from the small stack he'd been allowed to keep. Yes, all was going fairly well, until…

"Where is he?!" Edward yelled as he flung the door open, surprising all inside of the room.

"Ed, calm down! It's only a rumour!"

"Yeah, a rumour he spread about me!" the golden-eyed boy returned and would have marched up to Roy's desk had he not been lifted clear off of the ground by his younger brother who had become tired of his brother's antics. But Ed wasn't the blonde that Roy should have feared at that moment in time.

"Colonel Roy Mustang, just what kind of falsehoods have you been spreading?!" Lieutenant Hawkeye reappeared, obviously ferocious with the dark-haired man whom she served under.

"Woof! I'm a dog of the Military!" announced Roy, but he knew that he shouldn't be so jovial about it. It wasn't like he could help it. Had it not been for the hypnotism, he would have whimpered obediently, received the telling-off for whatever he'd done wrong without complaint and embraced the angry bullets in his body that were sure to be fired in his direction.

No one dared say anything; no one even dared to move. It was obvious that Riza Hawkeye was on a warpath, and suddenly it had become every man for themselves, meaning that all of Roy's loyal subordinates abandoned him in the true face of danger. And dangerous this woman was.

"Even when I go into a completely different room from you, you still manage to cause me some sort of grief! Why is that? Why is it that while I was trying to get some sleep after you kept me up for two nights by giving me all of your paperwork, you then call me over in the middle of the second of those nights just when I was about to get some much-needed sleep? Why is it that when I finally get a chance to rest in the recreation room that I hear that you've been spreading rumours? And do you want to know what rumour is being spread? Though I'm sure you know already, what with you reportedly having started it, which I don't doubt. They're saying that you, Colonel, have a huge cock-fighting pit in your house. In other words, there is a rumour going around saying that a high-ranking military officer is partaking in and hosting illegal activities within his own home. But I know that that isn't true, because I was at your house and saw nothing of the sort! Oh, and to make matters worse, you're claiming to have slept with me!"

The blonde's speech was nothing short of a tirade, and the general consensus was that she'd only stopped because she'd run out of breath. However, for all of the officers ranked below the First Lieutenant, they finally realised that if she was responding to the news of herself and Mustang having a relationship so badly, then what the former of those two said earlier must have been just another attempted spread of a rumour.

Hawkeye continued after another breath. "But not just me; me and the rest of your staff!"

That addition of news certainly came as a surprise for the rest of the people in the room—their superior sure was trying to dig a grave for himself, wasn't he? But even now, Hawkeye didn't tire in her rant.

"In all of the years I've worked for you, never have I found you to be so incompetent, so lazy, so lacklustre, so annoying, so troublesome, so blatantly brazen, or so unmanageable! You weren't even this infuriating when I would have to continuously tell you to do your work and you would only reply and say something like, 'Work energy is measured in joules, not in paperwork, Lieutenant,' in a smug, snarky, waggish way. I know you're hypnotised, but I still just wish you'd learn to be less of a pest!"

By the time Riza had finished ranting, she was just as shocked with herself as the others appeared to be. She hadn't meant to be so harsh, but once she'd started, the ball had just continued rolling. It had felt good to get it all off of her chest, but now the irritation of everything that had previously afflicted her was only replaced with crushing guilt. The words had flown from her mouth of their own accordance; she'd merely spoken before she'd thought, but now she regretted everything she had said.

Roy's wide eyes filled and his mouth hung open as he looked at her, and for the first time that week, the tears began to roll down his cheek before he even got a chance to make it to the bathroom. "I…I can't help it…I'm really sorry…I wasn't trying to be a pest…," he apologised quietly, struggling to force the words out of his tightening throat, unlike Riza where the words had spilled out with almost practised ease. It was then in one swift fluid-like movement that he did stand, push his chair out from tucked under the desk then hurried out of the room.

"Chief!" Havoc called after the fleeing man, however Mustang didn't stop. "Damn it," the blonde exhaled heavily then glanced over to Riza. The look that the smoker gave her, albeit brief, wasn't shy of conveying any and all disappointment in the woman that he felt for her to attack their superior so, especially when he was so emotionally vulnerable and confused. Then, without another word, he followed after Mustang hurriedly.

The rest of the males in the room went about their business again, either getting back to work, or, in the Elric's case, leaving the room entirely, hoping not to catch the Lieutenant's eye lest they be forever cast in stone. Riza sighed heavily and went to sit down at her desk, but a rapping at the door halted her. Without even waiting for an invitation to enter, the door opened again and a smirking General Hakuro entered the room. All adopted a professional manner and stood to attention, following which the General motioned for them to lower their hands, his malevolent smirk still present.

"General Hakuro, sir; to what do we owe this honour?" Hawkeye questioned.

"I'm here to deliver this," he explained as he flourished a formal letter that was addressed to a Colonel Roy Mustang. "Don't tell me he's slacking off. He seemed to neglect his duties on Wednesday also, if I recall correctly. If he has time to be out of office, perhaps he isn't receiving enough work?"

Riza's eyes narrowed imperceptibly as the man came further into the room. "I believe that the Colonel has gone to use the bathroom," she enlightened, not caring for how he spoke of her superior regardless of what she'd just said directly to the Colonel.

"Tch, is that so? Anyway, I only came by to deliver this. See to it that he reads it as soon as he returns," the man ordered and left the room without even looking back at the other soldiers as they saluted him once again.

Once Hakuro had left and closed the door after himself, all attention turned to the letter that sat upon Mustang's desk.

"…What do you suppose it's about?" Fuery questioned meekly from where he was seated, wondering whether it was okay to speak when Riza had just been so harsh to Mustang.

Hawkeye sighed. "I don't know…But with how the General was smirking just, it can't be good…"

First of all, I'm sorry about the wait! It's been really hectic in terms of school work and exams. Unfortunately, until it all passes, it may be another few months until I get to doing a next chapter. I won't abandon this though; mark my words!

Second of all, terribly sorry for the pun earlier: 'straight from the horse's mouth'. Mustang. Horse. Get it? Yeah, sorry about that.

Thank you very much for reading.