WARNING: This section contains a minor spoiler for later in the series. I'm overestimating for safety, as I haven't got my copy of FMA accessable, but if you haven't seen through 45, you might not want to read. Make your own choices, though. .
Wait
"Colonel." She said, saluting as she stepped onto the front porch of the Rockbell family house. Her superior brushed her formality aside, gesturing to the recently vacated chair across from him. She hesitated a moment longer in the door before seating herself. He tilted his head back, staring at the star-filled sky.
"Lieutenant." He replied.
She walked gingerly around to the other side of the table. Close at hand, she could hear the steady clank of Alphonse's father as he walked with Hohenheim. When she seated herself, the chair had yet to give in to the cold night air, retaining its warmth. She seated herself, and waited.
"Fullmetal still hasn't forgiven his father." He said after a moment, still avoiding her gaze. "No surprise there, I suppose. If his height were equal to the amount of time he can hold a grudge, he'd have to worry about tall jokes instead of short ones."
Above her, the moon hung low in the sky, beautiful and full. She knew, but she didn't look. The crickets chirped quietly in the grass. She heard, but paid them no mind. Instead she watched the man across from her. She watched him, and waited.
"She knows about me." He continued. He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together under his chin and continuing to watch the universe flying by overhead. "Both of them do. They've done all right, in spite of what they lost."
She could hear a funny echo in his voice, and knew the unspoken sentiment. What they'd lost – and what he'd taken. Somewhere inside the house, a door slammed shut. She noted it, but also registered it's distance – a door to a room at the back of the house, not one at the front. Under the table, she switched the way she'd been crossing her ankles, not once tearing her gaze from the man before her. She recrossed her ankles, and waited.
For several long moments, they merely sat upon the porch, two small parts of a much greater whole. A mockingbird's song drifted to them on the night wind. Aside from that, and the steady motion of clouds over head, the entire world stood still.
Still, she waited.
Finally, he tore his gaze from the heavens above, eyes mirthlessly meeting hers. She resisted the urge to flinch at the cracks showing on his unsmirking face. The hold he'd managed to keep over his emotions for the past few weeks was slipping. She wondered if he'd simply convinced himself that it was only a temporary situation. She wondered, and waited.
"They still don't know." He said at length, managing a steady voice, though the effort put into it shone clearly. "They'd already left Central when it happened, and haven't seen anyone who'd think to tell them since. They don't know about him, and I-"
His voice broke, her own heart breaking in sympathy as she waited.
"I can't tell them. I can't tell them he's-" He stopped as she moved at last, reaching out to take his hands in hers.
"I know." She said softly. He nodded, and she let it rest at that. After all, telling them wouldn't change anything.
It, like her, could wait.