DISCLAIMER: Hagaren belongs to Arakawa.

A/N: This is a sequel to Chapter 20, Selfless (wow look at that I'm being nice for once, telling you ahead of time).

~Stakeout~

"Are you serious?"

Riza, the long-suffering assistant - slash - bodyguard, sighed. "Yes sir, I am."

"This is such a joke!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands up and ignoring the pain that shot through his back. "What, did they run out of junior officers who were free for the weekend?"

"Sir, please calm down. With your injury still healing, I would be grateful that they're going easy on you if I were you. Besides, not every assignment can be a life-threatening, explosion-filled escapade. It might do you good to take it slow for a little while."

Roy groaned. "Still, a stakeout? For a petty thief? What is this?"

"This is your assignment, sir, whether you like it or not," Riza fired back, not in the mood to listen to him whine. "So I suggest you suck it up and do as you're told."

Mustang gaped at her as she dropped the stack of papers in her arms onto his desk, leaving the office without so much as another glance.

She was at his door at eight that Friday night, swathed in black with a cap over her growing blonde hair. He was dressed to match, though his expression was noticeably more put out than his Second Lieutenant's. If she noticed, she didn't comment.

The neighborhood in question was not far from the street Hawkeye lived on, though it was much sketchier. Riza had two extra guns on her, and though she handed one to her superior, the look on her face betrayed her doubt that he'd be able to handle it. It was mostly for security - better to have something in his hand than have to hide behind his subordinate, should it come down to that.

Riza drove carefully, not using the headlights so as to escape notice. Roy kept his eyes behind them so that she could focus on the road ahead, and they managed to arrive without incident. She parked two houses down from the streetcorner, finding a spot that gave them a good vantage point over the entire street.

Roy wordlessly handed her a set of binoculars, and for over an hour, the pair was silent.

It had to happen, of course.

"I'm bored."

A sigh. "I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

"Entertain me, Lieutenant."

"No."

"Please?"

"Lieutenant Colonel, please focus."

"On what? Nothing's happening."

Riza gave another sigh, relenting. "How am I supposed to entertain you, sir?"

Roy didn't bother hiding the grin that formed at her words. "Tell me a story," he suggested.

"Sir, I wasn't good at storytelling when we were kids, and I haven't gotten any better," she replied dully. "Besides, I don't know any good ones."

"You could tell me a story about you," he tried, still hopeful.

The Second Lieutenant practically snorted. "There's nothing to tell you that you don't already know, sir. We've been with each other for a long time."

Roy didn't respond right away; Riza glanced up at him. If she wasn't mistaken, there was a small grin tugging at his lips. "Yeah, we have," he agreed.

There was a small thump that came from Riza's ribcage, and she averted her gaze. Her epiphany in the ambulance was still fresh in her mind, and while it hadn't really been life-altering… well, she was only human, after all. Some things couldn't entirely be helped.

That train of thought led her down to the memory of the bullet he'd taken to the shoulder, and Riza tensed despite herself. "Sir… we'll be together for a whlie longer, won't we?" she asked, trepidation leaking into her thought of losing him scared her more than she cared to confess, and she'd already come close more than once.

Her superior's eyes fell to her, and reluctantly she turned to meet him. It was several long moments before a 'yeah' made its way past his lips.

Roy shook his head, regaining his composure. "Usually I'm the one asking that," he laughed weakly.

Picking up her binoculars again, Hawkeye resumed surveillance. "I suppose as long as the answer's the same, it doesn't matter who's doing the asking," she murmured, and the subject was dropped.

It was another hour before Riza noticed that Roy had fallen asleep. Before she could move to wake and scold him, he shifted, inadvertently sliding into her and his head falling to rest on her own like they were made to fit that way.

With a final sigh, she let him sleep.

He was injured, after all.

A/N: Twenty-five chapters already, holy crap. That's like a quarter of a hundred.

I don't have any idea how many chapters I'll write for this, to be honest. I'll keep going as long as these two eat my muse (and as long as people aren't completely sick of seeing my work).