Author's Note: I'm sorry I haven't updated for like… God knows how many months. This chapter is short, but I promise the next will be longer—I have the next chapter written down. I just need to type it out. I'll try to keep updating in shorter periods of time, now that school's come to a break. In spite of this, I need more reviews (whether they be good or bad) in order to update again. Thanks. --

Trying to Move On

"Oh, Colonel, you spoil me!"

"Please, call me Roy."
He was given a giddy giggle as the woman on his right tightly grasped his arm. She was a brunette, one heavily loaded with make-up and perfume. They stood before a restaurant—might I add that it was a very five-star, very exalted, very expensive restaurant? I mean, not to brag or anything…. But he only wanted the best.

As his date set those wide emerald eyes on this place, she was ostensibly grateful, and most definitely not accustomed to being provided with such luxuries; she practically dislocated his shoulder dragging him to the entrance.

Now, what was with the sudden altering of moods? As we began this escapade of woe, the colonel was utterly ecstatic, then a tad fearful. He'd been in despair for an entire day, then in complete disarray the next. Somewhat of a sense of relief had swept him from these unfathomable emotions at last, and all of these stages were only natural in the process of rejection, however, could his affection for his lieutenant truly be described as love if he so quickly got over her? Never once had he even thought of uttering such an honest, forbidden word in a woman's ear. Any woman's ear. Why did he deem that Hawkeye would be any different? Because they'd worked together for years, and those years had deteriorated the wall separating them, the wall that distinguished their professions from their personal lives. That wall had become so thin and so short that the only word left to define it was a line. Had he tried to cross it too soon? Had he any decent reason to cross it at all? Had that wall only thinned because he wanted it to?

Doubt. He caught himself in another blur of an emotion-driven stage.

Before he was able to put in a word of his own, he found himself sitting at a two-person table with his new date sitting across from him. The female interlocutor led their 'conversation' away, sleazily venting over her past relationships in the most vulgar way he imagined was possible.

"My first boyfriend was a grease monkey—I'm surprised he even changed his underwear without me telling him to. My fifth and seventh were the same way, but my ninth was a gentleman… but he cheated on me. My sixth… well, he," She interrupted herself for a gawky laugh, swinging her palm in one direction about twice, "He swung the other direction, if you know what I'm saying, and…"

He seemed to drown out her words at that point, face paling as if he'd realized he just made a horrifying mistake. Her true colors burst out of that already painfully bright exterior as a cooped- up bird would a cage after a month of solitary confinement. Apparently these colors were entirely too bright for our poor Mustang to handle, so he pulled her plug out around her fifteenth mate (he didn't even know if he went through so many woman in three months).

"I can fully assure you, I'll be different. You have my word."
"That's what numbers two, six, and ten said."

"You can trust me, Sleaze-a--- I mean Riza!" And thus with a hiss, "Oh, damnit."

The whole restaurant seemed to grow deafly silent, Roy's eyes now following the pattern of the checkered tablecloth. He could feel her eyes driving into his skull. He'd never made such an insolent mistake in his life, for he believed he was too classy and smooth to say something… to say something so unbelievably stupid. Of course, he couldn't simply shrug off that he'd insulted her and used an incorrect name; his arms extended to gently grasp her hands in his while eyes traveled up to her, as if to hypnotize. He spoke with utter sincerity.

"I apologize… Truly, I do. Not that this explanation is any reliable excuse, but you reminded me of my last relationship with a woman. Your appearance, that is; she was beautiful, as are you, but we went our separate ways, I'm afraid I haven't quite gotten over it. I could understand if you hate me, just as she does, Lisa." Her true name was emphasized as to signify that he did, in fact, know her name.

He was forced to lock up a smirk as he seemed to be successfully pulling off this façade of sincerity. The silence between them, he had to assume was a positive sign. His date's emotionless face soon smiled, but he was very aware that this smile conveyed the exact opposite of joy as the pressure of her nails started to puncture his skin. The colonel attempted to withdraw his hands but in doing so only made it worse by having those claws drag across his flesh. A wince was given as dark eyes shifted from the pair of hands, back to the violent woman.

"My name is Mary."