A/N: On with the chapter! I told you it was almost done!!

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Chapter Fourtteen: Morning After (Part Two)

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If it was cold in the hotel, it was a refrigerator in the basement. Fuery avoided puddles by the glistening streaks of light his flashlight sent across them, listening to the hum of the auxilliary generator, which thankfully could power the lights.

"What," he'd asked Gloria, finding a flashlight for him after his initial trip to the generator room, "Did they blow it out powering the ball last night?"

"It's entirely possible—I have no idea about these things. Suppose I should learn sometime, in case the power ever goes out in my apartment…" She shrugged, hair rippling over her back—it was out of the customary bun, which was, she said, too cold. At the moment, anyway.

"Maybe I could teach you sometime," he'd said without thinking.

"You'd better do it soon, then. You guys are leaving tomorrow, right?"

"Oh—you're right. Funny, I didn't even think about it—yes, we're going back to HQ tomorrow. It'll be good to be back at work—hehe—vacation almost makes you miss it..."

"Oh, I see…" She laughed lightly after a prolonged moment. "…Only you would enjoy the thought of going back to work, Mr. Fuery."

Kain fumbled his flashlight and splashed unhappily through a puddle to reach the main generator, drenching his feet with icy water. There was nothing left to do but get this thing fixed. Stupid, stupid…!

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"Stupid, stupid," Gloria muttered to herself, shuffling papers ferociously across the desk in search of a file. She must not have written it down—the elderly couple in front of her swore they'd had a reservation, but she hadn't found it listed. Her boss would murder her if they were kept standing there, looking at her in kindly but bewildered insistence, for much longer. It was all her fault. And in any case, it was no use, because he probably had his own job to do and couldn't afford the time to…

"Argh!" The problem was, Gloria decided calmly, that she couldn't pay attention.

One of the couple, the older man, reached out one weathered hand and patted hers sympathetically, then took the clipboard of reservations from the desk and offered it to his wife for perusal. "I'm so sorry, Sir, Ma'am," Gloria babbled. "I know you had a reservation, I just need to find it. I'll get it cleared up as quickly as possible—please don't worry."

"Gloria!"

"Young lady," the old man said—

"What?" she asked, utterly mystified.

"Hey, Gloria, have you seen Fuery?" It was Lieutenant Havoc; she saw him jogging up out of the corner of her eye.

The old woman said, pointing with one wrinkled finger to a name on the list, "Is this us?"

Gloria ignored the man walking up behind her to peer closely at the list: Norman—no, Dorman—she'd misread it the first time…

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you so much." the brunette girl said, choking back unexpected tears of relief. She was overreacting to this. Way, way overreacting. "I'll get your room keys right away, Mr. & Mrs. Dorman."

She could feel the Lieutenant's presence behind her as she procured the listed keys from the box beneath the counter, rather desperately clinging to cheerfulness. "Have a good day!" she called to the couple, advancing rather haphazardly towards the ground-flor rooms of the hotel; the old man was clutching a suitcase in one hand, and his wife's arm in the other. They were chuckling at something.

Hmph. It had better not be her. "He's in the basement," she answered, turning and cutting off Havoc's attempt to re-phrase his question.

"What, got him chained up in there?" Havoc laughed. "It's the only way you'll ever get him to come out and say it, anyway. What a wuss."

"…fixing the generator," Gloria said deliberately, looking sourly up at the man.

"Oh, I see. Well, that's good—it was freezing last night."

"Yes, it…Say what?"

"Huh?"

"You said," Gloria said, brain finally processing something, "It's the only way you'll get him to come out and say it."

"Oh, that." Jean shook his head and looked away. "You'd think if he was going to steal things from me, he'd at least have the guts to go through with…uhh…"

Gloria was staring up at him with an intense calculation in her brown eyes. Then she looked at her watch.

"My shift ends in fifteen minutes," she said. "Mr. Havoc, stay here, would you? The reservation list is there…hardly anyone comes at this time of day anyway…" A clipboard was shoved into his hands; the blonde man barely had time to keep it from clattering to the ground before she was off, clutching her scarf, brown hair fluffing.

The man stared down at the clipboard in disgust and tentatively leaned against the booth, praying that no one came. He shuddered as a mildly disturbing thought surfaced in his brain:

He said out loud, "I swear, Hawkeye's rubbing off on her."

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Fuery had only just succeeded in rolling his sleeves up, getting his face dirty, and not fixing the generator at all when footsteps echoed behind him on the stairs to the basement. One foot at a time, as if with hesitation; or maybe it was just caution, because a few steps down, there was a shriek, sounds of a scrabble, and a loud crash.

Fuery jumped, dropped his wrench, and splashed to the door as fast as he could without dropping the flashlight as well. Yanking on the door a few times served to jumpstart his brain—which had been functioning remarkably well until this morning—and he turned the handle and shone the light up into the darkened passageway.

"Dammit," Gloria said, supporting herself against the passageway wall. She turned and looked at him with a frown. "I was doing just fine until now." Her breath misted out in front of her in the harsh yellow light of the flashlight.

"Hello," Fuery said; thought for a moment, bent and picked something up off the ground at the bottom of the stairs. "You dropped your scarf."

"Oh, sorry."

"You don't need to apologize—here, take it!"

"Um, alright." She slipped off the last step in front of him, reaching for the bundle of fabric, of which Kain forgot utterly to let go. This was probably acceptable, however, as he was a bit occupied kissing her.

After a period of time which the rational part of Fuery's brain decided probably was a lot shorter than it seemed—not that it counted—the woman pulled away and peered at his face, nearly her eye level but not quite. It was a good thing the flashlight was illuminating the puddle at their feet, since he could feel his face burning like an inferno.

"Um…"Gloria said, gathering her thoughts. Her hands were still tangled among his in the scarf, which didn't seem to be a problem at the moment. "So. Are you going to ask me out now?"

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Ten minutes later, someone else pounded on the basement door.

"Hey, Fuery, Gloria! If you're done making out, get over here!"

Conversation, which had almost returned to a normal level—Gloria was sitting on a water pipe and trying to catch what Kain was saying through the disassembled generator—suddenly became rather strained.

Covered in dust and grease, Fuery came stomping up out of the basement, followed by Gloria, both of them shivering and furiously crimson. Lieutenant Havoc, leaning against the wall outside the stairway's outer door, grinned and held out one hand to Breda, slumping next to him.

"Shut up," Breda grumbled, slapping a few crunched bills into his palm.

Fuery scowled.

Gloria did more than scowl; marching across the floor to Fuery's side, she tucked her arm underneath his and looked at Havoc—"Well," she said, "I haven't heard of you kissing anyone lately. Don't worry about him, Kain," she added to Fuery, slumped over her arm in a cloud of sudden despair, "He's just jealous."

Havoc was suddenly hit with a fit of coughing.

"Don't die," Breda said, snorting under his breath. "Choking on something, Hav? You look a little…red."

"Do you need some water?" Gloria asked helpfully, wrapping her arm more tightly around the waist of her Master Sergeant, who sighed in defeat.

"Congratulations," Havoc coughed.

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"I still have to fix the generator," Fuery reminded Havoc as the group strode down the hallways. "So hurry up with whatever it is that you want us to see."

Havoc smirked, turning down the passageway that their rooms lined. "You guys took a while. Hopefully they're still at it."

Several of the group stopped moving abruptly.

"Aww, get your mind outta the gutter," Breda snorted, knocking gently at Colonel Mustang's door.

It opened to reveal Falman's face. "What took you so long? It's been twenty-eight minutes!"

"At least you had entertainment," Havoc said. Reluctantly, Fuery and Gloria followed them into the room, where the rest of Mustang and Hawkeye's subordinates were gathered at the side of the inner wall door.

The aformentioned superiors were, indeed, in the room. The bed was occupied by First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, half out of the covers, apparently asleep; slumping in the chair next to it, Colonel Roy Mustang was a lumpy bundle of blankets, apparently taken from his own room.

"They're…asleep?" Fuery asked.

"Shh! Watch!"

Time passed slowly until the First Lieutenant's eyes flicked suddenly open. Easing herself up off the pillow, she inched one hand to the side of the covers with excruciating slowness, furtively tugging the blanket off her body—

"No, you don't," Mustang's voice rasped, and the pile of blankets moved lumpishly, thrusting out a hand and shoving her weakly back down onto the pillow via the forehead.

"Go to sleep, Sir," Hawkeye mumbled. "I told you, I'll be fine."

"And I told you," the man said, "Not unless you stay in bed. Is it so hard to comprehend?"

"Alright, Sir…"

"You're just saying that, Lieutenant."

"Go to sleep, Sir."

"Haven't we been through this already, Lieutenant?"

Silence.

Feury and Gloria stared in open-mouthed disbelief; the rest of Hawkeye and Mustang's subordinates were hurriedly stifling hysterical laughter.

"They've been doing this the whole time…?" Gloria asked, answered by mute nods.

"Ever since we found them…" Breda trailed off as Hawkeye tried to escape again, to be greeted by the same fate.

"Colonel, please, I'm fine."

"You're fine, my ass. Don't you dare move."

"Go back to bed, Sir. You need to rest."

"That's what I've been saying about you the entire time!"

"BOTH OF YOU—" Gloria screamed, banging the door open, "SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP!"

Everyone jumped; Roy fell halfway off his chair with a curse.

Hawkeye, finally able to sit up, blinked blearily at her scattered subordinates, watching them massage their ringing ears. Her eyes flicked over the rest of them to Gloria, who had managed to hold on to Feury the entire time. She smiled.

"Good morning. Good for you, Master Sergeant."

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A/N: Whew!

Mwahaha, remember the warning to lemon fans?? (if not, see A/N for chapter one…) I'm fulfilling it now, aren't i?? Mwahaha!

--deliriously raves--

I'm rather sorry about the spontaneous kissing scene; I wasn't planning it, but i guess i had to go with my gut on that one. hopefully you enjoyed it anyway, since once again i'm a little afraid to proofread. (the last one i numbed my brain with late-nightness and ended up editing anyway, and i thought it turned out okay.)

Review, pweez, people! & thanks for reading!

AA-M