AN: So I know that I said that I would post on Sunday but I couldn't wait to get this chapter up. Thank you so much for the favorites and follows, and especially the very thoughtful review by pen n' notebook. I hope that you all like this chapter too!

In the morning, while locking the door to his house, Roy realized that he didn't have the keys to the car that headquarters had lent him. Riza only lived a few blocks away, he mused, so maybe he could just walk to her apartment and pick them up from her and they could drive to work together. It was a good plan because he knew that she took the bus to and from work and he could save her a couple hundred cenz.

As he approached the car, though, he noticed a detail that proved that his plan wouldn't work at all. Riza was already sitting in the driver's seat, looking up at him. She rolled down the window. "Are you ready to go to work, General?"

His eyes searched her face in confusion. "Have you been out here all night?" He asked incredulously.

"No." A guilty look crossed her face. She looked tired. The dark circles under her eyes were even more prominent on her fair skin. "This morning I left for about an hour to wash up and change clothes. I checked the car and the perimeter of your house when I got back, though. Everything is all clear."

Roy shook his head in disbelief. "You shouldn't have done that. I was fine."

"No, I needed to do that. Someone tried to kill you, General, and it is my job to protect you." There was a tone of finality in her voice that indicated that the conversation was over. "We have to leave now if we don't want to be late."

Although he still didn't feel right about the situation, he got into the passenger side of the car, fighting a wince as he slid into the seat. While he was feeling much better today, every movement seemed to pull at the hundreds of incisions where glass was pulled from his body yesterday. When he closed the car door he realized that she was watching him with scrutinizing features.

"Are you sure that you're ready to get back to work, Sir?"

"I'm fine, Captain. Just a little sore, that's all." He knew that he couldn't stop her from worrying about him but maybe he could ease her mind a little. She seemed to take his reassurance and started the car.

After a couple of minutes of driving she broke the silence. "Can I ask you a question, General?"

"Yes," came his immediate reply, shifting his gaze from the familiar buildings that moved past their car to her weary face. Worry deepened in his chest.

She looked back at the road, and he was relieved to find that her tone was light. "When Lieutenant Havoc drove for you, you always sat in the back. But when I drive for you, you always sit up front with me."

The question caught him off guard because he had never really thought about it before. Why did he he always sit in the passenger seat while she was behind the wheel? It had just been an instinct. He supposed it was because on some level, it was because he wanted them to be equals. Their trust in each other was implicit, after all. She would always watch his back, and he would always protect her.

But he couldn't tell her that. No matter how close they were, she was still his subordinate. "Well you see Captain," he began smoothly, a wolfish grin spreading across his lips, "I just like sitting close to beautiful women."

Riza scoffed at that, although it looked to him like she was fighting back a smile. He savored it. "I'm being serious. You know that it doesn't look proper."

Proper. He hated that word when she used it. Proper meant that he couldn't do things that he wanted to do with her. It meant that every word spoken between them and every action they performed had to be as though they were being strictly monitored. And he knew that people watched them in the headquarters's offices, and he knew the rumors that swirled whenever they were together, although it never was addressed to him directly due to his status. Even though over the years he had gone on numerous dates with numerous women, he and Riza always seemed to gather attention- which was all the time now that they were alone the whole work day.

Ever since their promotions he could swear that Riza had been colder to him. Maybe it was because they didn't have the buffer of his men between them, or that his being a general put him in the spotlight. But she was definitely more distant. Gone were the soft touches to his hands when she gave him paperwork, and she didn't play along with his teasing remarks. She barely seemed to look at him at all, even. Yesterday, in the hospital, when she had let him hold her hand while he was laying in bed, was the closest that they had been in months. He knew that her feelings for him hadn't changed because he could still hear her heart in her voice every time that she spoke to him- a faint spark of want and longing that would be imperceptible to anyone but him. His ears had been trained to hear all the things that she couldn't, wouldn't say to him after all of their years together. Riza couldn't hide that from him, at least.

"General?" Her voice shook him and he realized that she had parked and was looking at him expectantly.

He muttered an apology and stepped out of the car, cognizant that as he walked inside that she was following him, always one step behind.

"Where are you going?" Roy asked as she stood up from her desk and gathered the bag that she always carried with her. A quick glace at his pocket watch told him that it was only 1400 hours. There was still 3 hours left in the work day.

A frown crossed her face as she looked up at him, already slipping the bag on her shoulder. "I have a doctor's appointment. You approved my leave over a month ago."

Oh. He had, of course, forgotten. "It's fine, Captain. See you tomorrow." He hoped that her health wasn't in jeopardy in any way.

She had been waiting for his permission and now that she had it she started towards the door. "See you tomorrow, General. Don't get behind on your paperwork."

After the door had clicked shut behind her he leaned his elbows on his desk and buried his face in his hands.

On the other side of town, Riza arrived at the clinic a few minutes before her appointment. When she had called the office to make her appointment the receptionist had informed her that the doctor that she had been seeing when she lived in East City a few years ago had retired, but that she could make an appointment to see a new doctor at the practice, Dr. Stala. After checking in with the receptionist and completing some paperwork, she walked over to the seating area.

"Captain!" The receptionist called her back over to the desk with a sheepish expression. When Riza stepped back over the young woman explained with a sheepish expression, "We don't allow weapons in the exam room."

"Oh." Riza hand slipped down to feel the gun strapped to her side. She unstrapped it and slid it across the counter, then reached down to unhook the smaller pistol that she had strapped to her ankle.

"We'll put them in a locker behind the desk," the girl reassured her, taking the weapons with great care. Riza watched as her beloved guns were tucked away before she took a seat.

Unbeknownst to the General she had set up a security detail to monitor his home around the clock until they caught the person or persons who had planted the car bomb that had threatened his life. It would just be two plainclothes MPs watching his house from a car parked down the street. She had already put together a team to try to solve the mystery quickly. The thought chilled her, that there was someone out in East City right now who was plotting to kill her General. And she would not let that happen.

Riza looked down at her hands in her lap. She thought about the phone call that she had received at 0800 yesterday morning saying that he had been the victim of an attack and the sheer panic that had taken over her until she could be by his side. Surgery had taken so long and after a few hours of pestering the doctors and nurses that filtered in and out of the surgery room they started avoiding her and she was ordered to sit in the waiting room. She had left for short period to gather some of his personal belongings from his home, but she rushed back to the hospital as quickly as she could. Finally, after half a day of waiting, she was finally allowed to see him, and viewing him laying comatose in the hospital bed was enough to shake her normally steel nerves. She waited until everyone left the room before pulling a chair up close to his side.

He was so pale and the sight of him all bandaged up raised tears in her eyes. After a minute of watching him, she scooted forward in the chair and laid her head on his chest. Her golden hair pooled on the white bandages as she listened to his slow breathing and the soft beating of his heart.

Ever since they had returned from Ishval and had received their promotions, her nerves felt stretched as tight as a string. Every interaction with the General made her feel guilty, like they were doing something wrong. All of their secret glances, brushing of hands, and enigmatic words that they had carried on for so long had to stop, she decided. When he was a Colonel they had pushed their relationship far enough that they could get away with tiny displays of affection and not get caught. But with his promotion everything had changed. He was now the most important man in East City and they were so close to achieving his goal of becoming Fuhrer. And she would not do anything to cause them to stray from that path. Even if it meant denying herself of the moments that she cherished most.

Then he stirred and all of her musings of propriety vanished. She had quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and waited for him to wake up.

She was the only one in the waiting room of the clinic. A window was open and her hair stirred as a slight breeze wafted through the room. She was so tired. The radio was playing, and a song came on, one that she hadn't heard in years, and she closed her eyes, her scalp tingling with the memory...

"Where in hell can you go
Far from the things that you know
Far from the sprawl of concrete
That keeps crawling its way
About one thousand miles a day?
Take one last look behind
Commit this to memory and mind
Don't miss this wasteland, this
Terrible place when you leave
Keep your heart off your sleeve..."

"...Miss? Captain Hawkeye?"

Riza looked up, startled. There was a nurse standing in front of her. "We're ready for you to come back now," she explained.

"Oh." Riza stood up quickly and followed the nurse back to an exam room. She was instructed to sit on an exam table and the nurse asked her questions- if she smoked (no), if she drank (a glass of wine every night), how many sexual partners had she had in the last year…

"None," Riza answered sheepishly. Not in the last year anyway. She thought about before Ishval and the Promised Day that there had been someone that she had dated briefly. His name has been James, she met him at a book store, and he was sweet but she broke it off after a couple months. She couldn't give him a good reason why.

The nurse nodded and wrote everything down, before giving her a gown and telling Riza that the doctor would be in shortly.

She undressed and slipped on the gown so that it was open in the front and sat back on the exam table, eyeing the stirrups at the end. She wrapped the gown around her tightly and waited for the doctor.

Luckily, she didn't have to wait long. She watched the door open and close behind a tall man with short brown hair. He was wearing a lab coat but his eyes were obscured behind large classes.

"Captain Hawkeye," he greeted, extending a hand to her to shake. His voice was quiet and deep. "I'm Dr. Stala. It's nice to meet you." He smiled but she couldn't see his eyes.

"It's nice to meet you too, Doctor" she offered, shaking his hand quickly. "You can call me Riza." It felt weird for her gynecologist to call her by her rank, especially when she was sitting naked on an exam table.

"Okay, Riza." He put the clip board down and moved to stand by her side. "I'm just going to give you an examination and then take a pap smear. Does that sound okay?"

Riza nodded and laid back on the table, unwrapping the paper gown so that she was completely bare. She stared at the ceiling as his hands traced her breasts and tried not to wince as his cold hands molded her bare flesh. "When was your last period?"

"Last week," she muttered.

He nodded. "Everything looks normal, Riza." The doctor moved to sit at a stool at the end of the exam table. "Just put your feet in the stirrups here."

She scooted down and placed her bare feet in the metal cradles, spreading her legs. She breathed in deeply as he inserted the cold metal speculum into her inner folds.

"So you work in the military?" The doctor asked calmly. Riza didn't mind the small talk to keep her mind off of the sting between her legs.

"Yes," She managed to squeak as the object in his hands pushed deep into her womb. "I'm General Mustang's personal adjutant."

"I see. Just a little pinch here, Riza." She gasped and grasped the sides of the gown. "Have you been working for him long?"

"Yes," she affirmed, sighing with relief as he slid the speculum out of her body. "I've been with him for many years."

The doctor moved to stand over her as she sat up. The gown slid off of her shoulders and she saw his glasses glint in the light.

"What's this on your back, Riza?" He asked, touching her bare shoulders. She realized that he was looking at the large, scarred tattoo on her back and her stomach churned.

"It's just an old war scar," She murmured, straightening the gown over her shoulders and wrapping it tightly around her body. He stared down at her for a moment before moving towards the door.

"Everything looks to be fine, Riza," he stated, looking back at her over his shoulder. She suddenly felt more naked than before and stood up, moving towards her clothes. "I'll follow up with you about your results in about a month."

"Thank you, Dr. Stala." Riza watched him leave and waited until the door closed.

She stared at the closed door while she quickly redressed. The queasiness in her stomach did not ease until she was at the front desk and taking her guns back from the receptionist. The young woman told her "Goodbye" cheerfully and Riza chided herself for being so paranoid.

But being paranoid was part of her job, she mused as she made her way to the bus station. There was someone very important that she had to protect.

AN: Sorry if this chapter seems boring or if the exam stuff is too squicky but it's important to set up later stuff. The action is coming, I promise! Please review and let me know what you think of how things are going so far!