Hawk Queen
A/N: I was curious to see what I could come up with if I stuck Al and Hawkeye alone in a scene together. This was experimental.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: FMA's not mine.
Al sat outside of Col. Roy Mustang's office, waiting for Edward to finish his meeting with the Flame Alchemist. Ed was in quite a mood already, and Al didn't want to be in there while the war was raging. He was already cringing from the angry shouts he heard coming from his elder brother.
The Colonel must have called Ed short.
As the yelling continued, Al let out a long sigh. He did get very tired of Ed's temper tantrums and angered frenzies. Most people only had to deal with them once or twice; Al had to deal with them all the time.
However, Ed hardly, if ever, blew up on Al.
Al was jarred from his thoughts as First Lt. Hawkeye appeared, a tall stack of papers in her arms.
"Good morning, Miss Hawkeye, sir," Al said with a quick salute. Al was in the habit of using his manners, unlike Ed, whose usual greeting was, "Hey, so-and-so!"
Hawkeye nodded. "Good morning, Alphonse. How are you?"
"Fine, thank you, ma'am – I mean, sir," Al replied. He wasn't used to military terminology and titles. He was used to calling women "ma'am". Hawkeye just smiled. Al noticed that she had a very nice smile and wondered why he didn't see it very often.
She shifted the stack in her arms, freeing her right hand, and reached for the doorknob to Mustang's office.
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," Al warned.
"Why not?"
Just then they heard Ed scream, "Who are you calling an amoeba so small you can't even see it under a high-powered microscope?"
Al sighed. Hawkeye chuckled.
"When did you and Edward get back out here to the East?" she asked Al.
"Just today. Brother wanted to get his report over with so that he can go to sleep. He's crabby from the long train ride here, so I decided to stay outside the office."
"I don't blame you."
Al folded his hands in his lap as she sat down in the chair beside him. "How are you, First Lieutenant?" he asked politely.
"I'm fine. Any luck with the Philosopher's Stone?" asked Hawkeye. She knew they hadn't had any. If they had, Al would be happy and whole, and rather than screaming in outrage, Ed would be laughing in the Colonel's face; it become almost expected that they would never have any luck.
Al sighed. "No, but Brother says that next time we'll make it." He didn't feel very sure of that, and hoped that his doubt didn't show in his voice. He sank a bit lower in his chair. "Don't tell Brother, because it will make him sad, but I don't know if we'll ever find it, sir." His voice fell to a whisper. "Sometimes I don't think it even exists."
Hawkeye was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of maternal sympathy. She wanted badly to make Al feel better, to encourage him to believe what she herself saw only as a myth.
She laid the pile of paperwork on the floor beside her chair and took his hand. "It does exist, Alphonse, and you will find it," she assured him.
He looked at her, surprised. She had never said so much to him at one time before. She was often there, but was silent most of the time. Now and then she'd greet him, but she was usually busy in the background, or standing straight and proud behind the Colonel, almost like a queen. Looking at her now, she seemed very regal to him, her back ramrod-straight, a dignified gleam in the burgundy-wine eyes trained on him, her hair neat and prim in its clip with not a strand out of place. She might as well have been wearing a crown.
He had noticed that she was always around the Colonel. He wondered if she loved the Flame Alchemist. Whatever the reason, he knew that she felt loyal to and responsible for Mustang, just as he felt loyal to and responsible for his brother. Al and Riza were the shoulders to cry on; they were the hands that steadied the ambitious, impulsive people they cared for when they stood too high on the mountains.
They were more alike than he'd realized.
And here was this hawk queen, telling him everything was going to go right with his tattered life, even when they both knew it wouldn't.
He squeezed her hand back. "Thank you, sir."
She gave him another of her rare smiles. "You're welcome, Alphonse."
When Ed came out of Mustang's office and Hawkeye went inside with an over-the-shoulder wave, Al stared for a bit after the door closed behind her.
"C'mon, Al. What's wrong?" demanded an extremely flustered Ed.
Al turned to him. "I'm sorry, Brother. I was thinking."
"About what?" Ed was now dragging Al down the hall.
"That the Colonel's very lucky."
"Oh, yeah?" Ed shot him a particularly venomous glare. "Why's that? Because I didn't smash his smirking face in?"
"No, Brother. Because anyone who has First Lieutenant Hawkeye working for them must be a really lucky person," Al told him.
Ed stared at Al, puzzled. "You are so weird, Al."
Al laughed. "Thank you, Brother."