V "Anniversary"

"I was looking at my calendar yesterday and wondering if you remembered what day it is tomorrow?"

"When you killed Führer King Bradley, you mean?" Revolution Day was in a week, but that really wasn't the big one for them, was it? It hadn't been celebrated last year, since the government hadn't quite had the nerve to declare it a holiday yet. My God, has it already been two years?

"The day you saved my life, at any rate," he said. "The fair's just set up, and I thought it might be a good plan to beat the rush."

"Is this how you're going to apologize to me for being excessively busy all last month?"

"I have to keep my job if I'm going to keep taking you to nice restaurants and buying you expensive jewelry."

"Implying, of course, that there are more said purchases to be planned."

"I strive forward in the desperate hope I may someday be rewarded."

Riza had sat beside the phone for a long while after the arrangements had been finalized, picking apart Roy's words. He hadn't outright said anything resembling an implication that he wanted to spend the night with her, but he didn't have to. She knew he was frustrated at her reluctance, disappointed at the way she always pulled away at the last moment.

It didn't even really make her uncomfortable more than it made her feel as though the timing wasn't quite right…and now the timing was feeling much less wrong. Her ability to keep him at bay had always waxed and waned, and it seemed as if the time had come around again.

So what should I do? she thought, staring blankly into the mirror. If this was going to be it, she felt as though she wanted to do something special. She wanted things to be different, less turn-of-the-moment this time. It shouldn't have to be something obvious, though. That wasn't like her.

Code Black Hyatt whined at her feet. He had become clingier lately, sensing that she wasn't around as much, that she spent time with Roy almost every day and came home smelling like his cologne. She had never been one to baby the little mutt, but she liked how he had become a wonderful rainy-day companion. She pulled him up into her lap and ran her fingers through his fur; he buried his nose in her stomach and fell asleep.

It was so easy with animals. They asked for what they needed and loved you no matter how much you gave them in return. For what was probably the hundred thousandth time she thought about how inaccurate the phrase "dog of the military" was.

It was shedding season—Black Hyatt's fur was coming off in her hands. Well, that was something she could take care of, at least. It was about time she waxed again. She'd gotten badly out of the habit of it.

She picked her dog up out of her lap. He opened one eye lazily, hanging in her arms, as if to ask why on earth she'd woken him up. "You don't mind if I'll be out tomorrow night, do you?"

He yawned and closed his eyes again. He probably hadn't understood a word she said.