Fever

Author's note: You know, I never intended for this fic to be this long…

Chapter 15 – Coincidental Miracles

"Where am I going to get $700?" she ask herself as she paced her living room. "I've only got $300 in savings and even with my paycheck in two weeks I still wouldn't be able to make up that kind of money." She continued to pace. "I'm going to have to borrow from someone…" she said, the thought made her sick. "The only person I could really ask would be Mustang—and after that show I gave him this morning there's no way he'd help me…" Riza couldn't help but feel like her back was against the wall. "Maybe Hughes…" 'No! He's got a family to support. I couldn't possibly ask him to give me money.' "Then what am I going to do?" Just then there was a knock at the door.

Riza opened the door quickly, and was surprised to see that it was Hughes on the other side. "What'd you want?" she said, not meaning to sound rude.

"I came by to drop off some paperwork." Hughes said handing her a folder. "Roy was too afraid to do it himself." He finished smiling.

"Oh, thank you." She said off hand, her mind was still on Black Hayate.

"Something bothering you Lieutenant?" Hughes asked. He could hardly keep the smile from his face. Of course he knew what was bothering her, he was the one that'd set it up, it was just a good thing she didn't know that.

"Black Hayate's sick." She said, she left out the money issues on purpose. Even if she was mad at Hughes for what he'd done to her in the Red Herring she knew him well enough to know that if she mentioned her money troubles, he'd try to help.

"Oh, that's too bad. Is it serious?" Hughes said, stringing her along. 'Come on Hawkeye, give me and opening to remind you about the money.'

"Yes, I'm afraid so…he needs surgery."

"Oh that's too bad." Hughes said, "Surgery can be pretty expensive, especially for pets."

"Yes, I know…$700." Hawkeye said, looking at the floor.

"$700, huh? Wow, then I guess its lucky that you got paid that much at the club last week." Hughes filled in, 'I've got you right where I want you. This couldn't be going better if you were reading from a script.'

Hawkeye's head perked up. "What'd you say?"

'Oh my God, look innocent Hughes' he thought to himself, "I said 'I guess it's lucky that you got paid $700 last week at the club.' You know, when you sang."

Hawkeye's eyes lit up. "Hughes you're a genius!" she said as she grabbed her keys and shouldered by him to get out of the door.

"Whoa whoa! Where are you going?" he said, genuinely confused.

"To the club. I forgot to pick up my money last time and-"

"Now? You're going now?"

"Of course," she said, getting a little suspicious. "When else would I go?"

'Crap, she wasn't supposed to want to go now, she was supposed to wait! This isn't going according to plan!' "Uh…later! You should pick up the money later!"

"Why wait when I can go now?"

"You can't go now…you-you have p-paperwork. Yeah! Paperwork!" Hughes stuttered out.

"I can do the paperwork later, I think my dog's life is a bit more important than making sure Mustang dotted all the 'i's and crossed all the 't's."

"Oh, right. Of course! Um, how about I drive you?" Hughes said.

"Okay." Hawkeye said. Hughes was acting pretty weird, but if he was willing to give her a ride she wasn't one to turn it down.