In no way, shape or form do I take credit for creation or ownership of the Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (Fullmetal Alchemist) series. The original manga is the property of Hiromu Arakawa and the anime is the property of Bones animation studio.

The morning had been one of the quietest to date in the Mustang office, with only three people there, each working in silence. Well, working for the most part. Breda and Hawkeye were working and Roy was casting glances as Riza whenever he thought she wouldn't catch him. It wasn't his fault, really, that he couldn't concentrate. It had been months since he'd had a desk job, and just as long since he'd been able to look at Riza instead of doing the work that came with said desk job. He frequently found himself smiling, finding a particular feature each time he thought was cute or pretty or elegant or… the list of features and adjectives went on, and his paperwork got finished at a spectacularly sluggish pace. It remained that way until noon, when the door opened and the remaining members of the unit, talking animatedly with each other, arrived.

"-and I had to get dug out by three soldiers from the wreckage before we could continue," Feury finished his story, eliciting laughter from his companions as Havoc patted him on the back consolingly. Seeing Roy at his desk, the three saluted and Falman said a calm "Welcome back, Sir," as they waited for Roy to stand. Tossing them a quick salute, he approached the group with a smile.

"I see you men are finished with the repair crews for the day, would you care to join the three of us for lunch?"

Breda and Riza both looked at him curiously for a moment and stood, obviously picking up that they were to join them, despite being almost 20 minutes until it was time for them to break for lunch.

"Sounds great, Taisa," Havoc said, a grin on his dirt-streaked face as he wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. He cast his attention at Riza, grinning harder when he noticed her making an effort to not smile.

Riza made quick work of organizing the top of her desk before she walked over to the group. She didn't exactly smile, but she let her features soften as she felt Roy's hand at the small of her back as she made her way out the door. All too soon, it was gone as they entered the hallway. "I'd like to hear how things have been going so far this morning, if it's ok with the three of you," she said as the group of six made their way out the door and began walking down the hall together in the direction of the cafeteria.

"Have you heard anything back about getting assigned to the crews, Ma'am?" Feury asked, removing his streaky glasses to clean the lenses.

"Sadly, no," Riza replied.

"I keep telling her," Havoc said with a grin, "that all she needs to do is whip out her guns, and they'll sign her up in no time, but she won't listen."

"Havoc's got a point, Chuui," Breda added. "If you start making threats, they'll let you out there for sure."

"I know I wouldn't mess with you with that kind of persuasion," Feury added with one of his warm smiles. Falman smiled and nodded his agreement.

"Maybe I can pull some strings and get you assigned, if you really want out there," Roy offered as he opened the doors and led the group into the bustling cafeteria. It seems that they weren't the only people that had arrived early, as there were already people trickling into the room singularly and in groups like theirs.

"I appreciate the offer, but I think you've had enough strings pulled that were attached to your name recently, Taisa," Riza said with a tiny smirk, patting him on the arm as they all separated into different lines to get their desired lunches.

Having beaten the rush, they were able to quickly get food and met back up at one of the tables on the far end of the room, near the doors that they entered through.

"So, how're things going out there?" Breda asked before biting into the large sandwich taking up most of his plate.

Taking a moment to chew and swallow, Feury was the first to reply. "Well, since I'm so short and light, I'm with one of the search and rescue teams, crawling through rubble in search of survivors. Excepting a few mishaps with team members getting stuck in buildings, things have gone well. We've managed to excavate a few blocks and got two different families freed from crumbled homes. The work's pretty slow, because we constantly have to watch what we're doing, since the buildings could collapse at any moment." Rolling up his sleeve, he showed a few bandages wrapped around his left forearm. "If we're not careful, we get parts of houses falling on us, like what happened with me earlier today."

"Oh?" Breda asked, intrigued. While the others had heard the story already, He, Roy and Riza had missed out. He and Roy were listening attentively, watching Feury as he spoke while Riza was still eating her lunch, less obviously focused on her companion than the others.

"Yeah, I was trying to reach a kitten that was stuck under a flight of rickety stairs, and managed to cause them to crumble. You know how soft I am for animals; I threw myself over the cat and saved it, but it took almost twenty minutes before the team could get me dug out enough that I could climb free. I've just got some minor scratches, but we've got them wrapped to keep them clean."

Eyeing Havoc as he all but inhaled the soup that he was spooning into his mouth, Breda decided to question Falman instead. "What about you? What kind of crew are you working with?"

"Nothing as exciting as Feury, I'm afraid. I'm basically in charge of organization for one of the moving crews. We just load up debris and send it to other areas, mostly to the alchemists."

Nearly spitting out his soup in his rush to speak, Havoc piped up. "That'd be us."

"What?"

"I'm on one of the alchemist teams. Some fameless State Alchemist whose title slipped my mind again. He's a bit older than you, Taisa, and almost my height." He motioned to an area in the middle of his forehead with his hand. "All we do is bring him the materials that your," he pointed to Falman, "groups give us, and he does his thing, leaving repaired buildings in his wake. It's really bothersome, because we've got sheets and sheets of street layouts and building floor plans that we have to work with. Basically, our job is to reconstruct things as close to the way they were as possible and in order to do that, we've got to get the right kind of materials to the right sites and things like that. All in all, it's pretty tedious work. Have fun with that tomorrow, Taisa. At least you'll get to do the alchemic parts of it all, instead of the organizing."

"Well, at least I know what I'll be doing, finally," Roy commented between bites of his own lunch. "I suppose that doesn't sound too bad, in terms of what I'll be in charge of getting done."

Taking a moment to pause from sipping her tea, Riza decide to speak. "Personally, I think that none of it is 'too bad,' because we at least have a city to rebuild. Things yesterday could have gone much worse than they did, and we should all be thankful." She felt all five of them watching her as she closed her eyes and serenely went back to her tea, ignoring the knuckles that rested against her hip for a few brief moments on the side between her and Roy. For the entire meal, she had been trying not to think about him as their legs continually brushed against one another with each movement that Roy made, constantly fidgeting at he ate and spoke with his subordinates. So far, success had been minimal. She kept thinking about her long conversation with Havoc and it made her all the more aware of the man beside her.

Pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, Havoc liberated one and let it rest unlit between his lips before breaking the silence that had settled. "So, what have the three of you been up to while we've been out getting gritty and dirty all morning?"

In unison, all three replied "Paperwork," earning a sneer from the others.

"I take it that's all we've got waiting for us at the office this afternoon, Sir?" Feury asked, his gaze pointed to Roy.

"Do we ever have anything else?" Havoc asked with a grim smile. Roy merely nodded an affirmative answer.

Seeing others around them getting up, Breda took that at his cue and stood from the table, taking his tray in hand. "You guys enjoy your paperwork while I'm out doing heavy-duty physical labor. I'm in a clean-up and moving crew like Falman, but I'm one of the poor guys that's doing all the lifting onto the trucks, like I was doing last night. I'll see you all tomorrow." Throwing one last salute at Roy and Riza, he made his way to the tray return and was soon out the door with the others working the afternoon shifts.

"I suppose there's nothing for it but to get started on our paperwork," Feury said sadly, making to stand. Havoc and Falman joined him and eventually, after a deep, pitiful sigh, Roy stood as well. With much less drama, Riza rose from her seat and followed the others, silently sipping her tea all the way back to the office.

The group of five was greeted at their office by a very timid and nervous officer clutching a manila folder in his hands and staring at his feet. Seeing them approach, he jerked ramrod straight, saluting sharply. "Mustang-Taisa, Sir, I'm here to deliver some documents to Hawkeye-Chuui."

Waving his hand for the poor man to stand down, Roy walked past him into his office. "Go right ahead, that's fine."

"Ma'am," the timid man, almost as short as Feury, stammered; holding out the file folder to Riza. "These contain your assignment for tomorrow's afternoon shift and the following days, and an updated set of schedules and logs for your team's office for the next week."

Smiling around her teacup, Riza gratefully took the file from the man and thanked him before sending him on his way, shooting a superior look to the four men now seated at their desks as they watched her. "See? Not everyone has to be held at gunpoint to honor my requests, just you lot of miscreants."

Havoc clasped a hand over his heart mockingly. "Your harsh words wound me, Hawkeye-Chuui. So, what kind of grunt work does the brass have you doing tomorrow?"

Skimming her eyes over the top sheet, the edges of Riza's lips turned up ever so slightly in a smile before she looked back up and said, "It appears that Alex Armstrong has personally requested me to help assist him and his team tomorrow afternoon. It says here that I'll be directly answering to Mustang-Taisa and in charge of organization for his half of the team, due in part to my familiarity with alchemy." She continued reading, ignoring the fact that everyone but Roy was still watching her. She chuckled as she got to the end of the message. "There is also a note of me having shown exceptional skills in organization and about being familiar with Taisa's bad work habits."

At that, Roy's head snapped up from the work he was staring at futilely and he couldn't stop the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Then I suppose I should welcome you to the team, Hawkeye. It will be good to have you with us, even if part of your job is to keep me on task."

"Thank you, Sir," Riza replied calmly as she sat back down at her desk, happier with the outcome of her request than she had first thought possible. Tomorrow should prove quite enjoyable. After all, anyone that actually knew Roy Mustang knew that his lack of motivation when working in the office was inversely proportional with his attention span for field work, meaning that they would spend the day productively working as a team to help repair the city. She couldn't think of a person she's rather spend the afternoon working with.

Ok, I promise, there is actual romance-related material in the works in the upcoming chapters. Part of the reason chapters are so short is my work schedule and there's nothing I can about that, but I am sorry. The other reason for short chapters is that I'm kinda breaking it into "scenes" and some just end up longer than others, there's no real rhyme or reason to it. The one I'm working on prewriting (chapter 9, I think) is already about 8 and a half pages in Word, and already over 4000 words. (It's basically entirely Roy and Riza interacting.) This chapter was 4 pages and about 2000 words, to give you an idea. Another problem is that I have to Beta my own work, meaning I have to take some time away from it before rereading it a few times, in order to catch mistakes and awkward wording, which isn't helping the slow updating speed.

Basically, I'm sorry that I'm slow, but I am working my hardest to keep this at a relatively normal updating pace and I'll try to make chapters longer, but I don't want to stretch scenes unnecessarily, so no promises about that. Many thanks for all the support I've gotten so far, you're all wonderful; reviews, fav-ers, and alert-ers. ...I'm shutting up now. -K