Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Two weeks later, Roy was having another bad morning. He had been woken up far too early by a dog somewhere outside. Grumbling, eye still half closed, he had stumbled to the window. He hadn't been able to see the dog, but had succeeded in burning his cornea with the sudden burst of sunlight. After that less than pleasant experience, Roy was too awake to go back to sleep, so he decided to make a cup of coffee instead. Opening the cupboard in the small kitchen of his apartment, he quickly discovered two things: first, that he was out of coffee, and second, that cupboard doors can be very painful when they unexpectedly make contact with one's forehead.

Roy left his apartment an hour and a half later with a craving for coffee and the beginnings of a truly horrible headache. He would be early for work this morning. It was probably the third time in his life this had ever occurred. At this point, though, he didn't really care. All he knew was that he wanted coffee, and the office had some.

"Good morning," came the chipper call and wave from the young woman in the doorway of the jewellery shop ahead on the right. Roy had seen her a few times before, and usually stopped to flirt a bit. He had missed flirting with women while he was up North, and the woman was certainly pretty.

"'Morning," he replied somewhat less enthusiastically.

"You're out early this morning. Lots of work today?" she inquired, smiling and tossing back her shoulder-length red-brown hair.

"Something like that." He was not in the mood for small talk this morning. It was hard for him to converse when his mind (the part that wasn't reminding him of the pain in his head) was focused solely on a large mug of dark, bitter heaven. Somehow, later he could not for the life of him remember how, he managed to politely detach himself from the woman's company. He wasn't sure, but he thought that he might also have employed Havoc's name and number in the course of the detachment process.

Roy shuffled into the office a full half hour before he was even supposed to start work. He made his way up to the office, passing the Communications and Intelligence offices, and raising a hand to Denny Brosh and Maria Ross. He stepped into this familiar room that held his and his subordinates' desks and found himself facing Riza Hawkeye's gun.

"Sorry, Colonel!" she said, quickly putting the gun back in its holster and controlling the shocked look on her face. To Roy's chagrin, she hadn't managed to drop a single paper from the pile tucked under her other arm. Hawkeye placed the pile on his desk, turned, and saluted her superior officer. "Good morning, Sir."

"Is there coffee?" was his only response.

"Yes, Sir. I'll go get some."

Roy raised a hand. "No, I'll go. Do you want some?"

"Please. Just a bit of milk in it, if you don't mind."

He nodded and walked back out the door. As he got closer to the small room that held his salvation, he realized that Hawkeye had needed to tell him how she took her coffee. It shocked him to discover that while she knew him almost scarily well, he knew almost nothing about her. For reasons he couldn't explain, this thought bothered him.

A few minutes later, Roy returned to the office with a steaming mug in each hand. He placed the one in his right hand on Hawkeye's desk and continued toward his own. She looked up and thanked him with a small smile as she reached for the mug to blow lightly on the hot coffee. Her smile only increased the bothered part of Roy's mind, causing him to take a huge gulp of scalding hot, black coffee instead of the sip he had intended. He quickly swallowed and began to cough violently.

"Are you alright, Colonel?" Hawkeye's concerned voice said.

"Yeah. Coffee's hot," Roy managed between coughs.

"Yes," she remarked, trying to suppress a smile, "drinks made by boiling water have a tendency to be hot."

The room was silent after Roy had finished his coughing fit. He sat at his desk, alternately staring into and drinking from his mug. She occasionally sipped her own drink as she filled out the papers sitting on her desk.

"Lieutenant?"

She looked up, pen still poised over the paper. "Yes, Sir?"

He hesitated for a minute. "Why did you join the military?"

"I beg you pardon, Sir?" Her brow was creased as she stared at him.

He tore his eyes from the coffee cup to meet hers. "Why did you join the military?" he repeated.

Hawkeye set her pen down and sighed. She was silent for a while, and he began to think that she wasn't going to answer. "I went for walks a lot along the stream near my house when I was little. One time, when I reached the place where the stream met the road, I saw a man with his dog. The dog had picked up a stick because it wanted to play, but all the man did was take the stick from the dog's mouth and started beating her with it. He brought it down on the dog's body again and again, ignoring the agonized noises she was making. I wanted so badly to help that dog, to protect it from that hideous man, but I was a small child and he was enormous. I thought that if I joined the military I could protect the innocent so that people wouldn't end up in the same position as that poor animal."

"Hm," Roy replied, nodding and moving his eyes back to his coffee cup.

"Why?" she asked after realizing that he hadn't planned on saying anything further.

"No reason. I just don't know much about you, that's all."

"Ah. Come to think of it, you don't know much about any of us here, do you?"

"Not really." Strangely, not knowing about the others didn't bother him half as much as not knowing the woman sitting at the next desk. He told himself it was a combination of guilt for not paying attention to the person who had helped him while he was healing and lack of sleep, but somewhere in his mind he knew that wasn't quite right.

When he looked up at her again, she was already back to her paperwork. The stack she had placed on his desk was still untouched. After all, he still had ten minutes before he was even supposed to arrive.

"Hawkeye, where does all that paperwork you do come from? You don't slack off like I do."

"Most of it's yours, Sir. I do your paperwork for most of the day, since mine doesn't take very long and I know you'll never get all of yours done if you don't have help," she replied, not looking anywhere but the line at the bottom of the page she was currently signing.

Her reply did not help his mood. Roy simply at his desk, staring into his coffee and letting the bothered feeling in his mind and gut run rampant, his headache from earlier making it all the worse.

A/N: I've decided to make it my goal to hit Roy on the head with something at the beginning of every chapter. Gives you something to look forward to, doesn't it?

Yay update! Sorry it took so long. I wanted to watch the movie again before I got into this, but the subtitles on the copy I have are crap (and sometimes non-existent), so I had to wait until the Anime Club meet to see it. Which was good, because then I got to make sure I understood what the characters were saying. Plus I kinda lost the paper I had with all the names and stuff of the characters. Not that I really needed it for this chapter, mind you, but I didn't know that I wouldn't. I don't actually write these things, you see. The plot bunnies do. I'm just the pen-holding vessel thingy. How I could lose that paper is beyond me. I mean, it's bright pink. But I'm one of those talented people who will lose anything that can be lost.

It'll probably be about another week before I update again. It's exam time, and I really should study. Not to mention I have rehearsals this weekend for a performance on Monday (which I so don't want to do. I'm a designer for crying out loud! Not an actor!), and a design portfolio to finish for an interview next Friday that will decide the rest of my career. Eek!

Love you all muchly, and even more so if you review! I know you people are out there reading this and not reviewing! I can see you on the hit count!

I promise that this time I will not offer you virtual desserts of a questionable nature. It's chocolate chip cookies this week! Last week's desserts go to xTheDarkAngelx, momiji-k, flOofymikO, and YourViolentStalker (you can pass it off to someone who will like it).

Aindel S. Druida