Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me; it all belongs to the people who created Full Metal Alchemist. They are the true geniuses.
Author's Note: This story is a Roy/Riza centered one-shot. I know Roy acts calm and collected in the show but in this story there is another side to Roy, a side that is nervous and unsure. Read and Review if you like but Flames will be ignored. Thanks!
Unspoken Formula
She stood in front of his desk, her back straight; her expression straight…her entire personality straight.
She took her job seriously and she took protecting him seriously. Just once he'd like to see what she was like when she wasn't on duty.
Did she wear a skirt or stay with pants? Did she ever let her hair down? Did she keep her weapons with in reach even in the safety of her own home?
He knew these thoughts weren't appropriate ones for an officer to have towards someone working under him but he couldn't help it.
He wanted to get to know her better, sometimes he felt like he had too, if only to save his sanity.
He'd considered asking her to go to dinner with him, he had even started to say the words once but at the last moment he had stopped.
He had spent several sleepless nights trying to convince himself that it wouldn't be a "date" technically, he was just a superior officer who wanted to get to know his subordinates on a more personal level, so that he could learn how they thought and he could begin to anticipate their actions.
All of his justifications weren't true though. He had no desire to get to know Havoc or Fuery on a personal level. Just her.
He had written out the words, rehearsed them at his apartment but when it came time to actually say them, he couldn't remember them. When he looked her in the eye he suddenly forget how to be the charming, suave man he usually was to women and he'd begin to act like a nervous teenager, trying to ask a girl out for the first time.
He wouldn't say the words, she'd never know and he'd swear to himself that it was just easier to steal the girl friends of the other officers on his staff. Those girls couldn't read him like she did, they didn't know the secrets he carried and they had never seen the same horrors he had seen.
So he'd take those girls out for a dinner and maybe a play but every time he came into his office he saw her and he always forgot about all of the other women he had known. They weren't like her.
Every morning he'd sit behind his desk and vow that he'd ask her out this time and every time he failed.
It had become a formula for them by now. She'd deliver his paperwork and he'd sit behind his desk, speaking only the most necessary words to her.
Today was just like any other day. Except that today he'd finally say those words he was scared to speak out loud.
"Here are some supply rosters that you need to sign sir." Riza Hawkeye's words woke her superior officer, Colonel Roy Mustang, from his thoughts.
Here was his chance, he could accept the paperwork and say those eight simple words, 'Would you go to dinner with me Riza?'
Stiffly he took the papers, "Thank you Lieutenant." He hadn't said the words; instead he started reading the papers, avoiding her eyes.
Riza watched him for a moment before saluting, "Sir."
She walked towards the door and as it closed behind her their formula continued for one more day.
Fin.
