Hawkeye unlocked the door and sighed with relief when she was the only one in the office. Then she berated herself. Of course she was the only one in the room. She was always the earliest. And she'd unlocked the door, hadn't she? She was being ridiculous, and would have to do her best to act normally. Only one person would notice she was unsettled, but he was the very person she didn't want prying. At least, she thought grimly, he wouldn't be in for at least another hour. She sat down at her desk and began sorting papers between her pile, the trash pile, and the pile that absolutely required the colonel or another one of the team to sign. As always, her stack was the largest. Much of it would undoubtedly go home with her tonight, so she tucked the lower priority papers into her bag. Hayate lifted his head to watch her before turning his head to see who was outside the door. Havoc, Falman, and Fuery walked in, followed by Breda who, who was trying to scoot as far around Hayate as possible and Hayate, showing an remarkable sense of humor, yipped an excited greeting at the reluctant Breda. Havoc and Fuery laughed at the two as Falman approached Hawkeye and received his portion of work. The normal antics ensued, and everyone settled down to the normal routine. 15 minutes, 30, then an hour passed, and Mustang still did not enter. Hawkeye's annoyance flared at his rude absence. Perhaps he was sleeping in late, having stayed up late mulling over the files and plotting. She hoped that was the case, rather than him having spent the night at a bar. She had the barmen on her side though, and they kept her updated, via telephone, from the moment he walked into any of their bars and called her once he'd had more drinks than she considered appropriate. Therefore any drinking last night would have happened at his house, but the stash he had there was more that a little collection on whiskey. He didn't know she's seen how large is cache was; she had walked in on him several times while he was drinking and refilling his glass. The Colonel could very well be lying comatose in his house. She stood up and stalked over to the phone sitting on the Colonel's desk, ignoring the curious looks aimed at her back. She dialed, listened, then slowly replaced the phone it ins cradle before looking back up at her team mates who bowed their heads back over their work a moment to late to avoid her gaze. "Has anyone seen Mustang yet?"
"Don't know where he is? Maybe he's at a bar." Fuery interjected. The others rolled their eyes at Fuery. Had he really not noticed how close an eye the Lieutenant kept on their errant superior? But Hawkeye did not grace the question with a reply, simply grabbed her coat and walked out. Mustang was now three hours late and if he was sleeping off a few drinks, then it was her responsibility to run over to his house and wake him up. She'd rather babysit Elysia any day. Hayate trotted after her.
"No boy. You stay here with Fuery. I'll be right back." After I wake up that idiot she silently added. "Stay" she commanded again, stepping back to reopen the door for her companion. Hayate slunk back into the room to settle at Fuery's side. Hawkeye left for her car.
Lt. Hawkeye parked the car in front of the Colonel's house. If he were up, he'd be running to the door at the sound of her car. No such luck. When he failed to show up after a few minutes (which was a generous time allotment for her), she shut down the engine and climbed out. Something about the front stoop was bothering her; she could tell what it was. Striding up to the front door, she found they were the files Hughes had gathered for them. Unconscious habit had her gathering the papers before realizing she didn't know how they got there in the first place. Abruptly filled with forbidding, she righted herself and reached for the door handle, finding the house still locked. The momentary relief she felt was quickly banished by the realization that Mustang never locked his house while he was there. He was confidant that his reputation as the Flame Alchemist was deterrent enough, particularly while he was occupying the dwelling. The interior of the house confirmed her fears. No lights, no coat, no shoes, and an undisturbed bed testified that he had entered his house last might. Suddenly she was furious at herself. How could she be so careless? Two minutes was all it would've taken to watch him safely enter his house, she berated herself, unaware that Mustang had not been attacked, but too curious for his own good. She'd failed her duty. The only thing she'd promised him, and she couldn't even do that. Disgusted, she slammed the front door behind her, and threw herself into the vehicle. Driving back to Central Headquarters, she tried to regain her composure and barely succeeded. She was about the Elric boys granted, but they weren't exactly the best of fighters. Whatever had gotten Mustang though, would be a much deadlier opponent. Slowing at a light, she made a sudden decision and, speeding up, whipped her car around the corner, heading away from the Headquarters. Pulling up in front of a different building, she hurried inside. Without knocking, she burst into an office and confronted Hughes.
"We need to talk."
Hughes looked around the office at the other two people occupying the space, and pulled her into his personal office.
"Mustang's missing" she stated simply, watching Hughes' expression pale.
Then he nodded and turned back to his desk. Hawkeye stared at him, and was about to yell when he said," It must have been the information. Something in that file must've frightened someone." Realization dawned on Hawkeye, "So if we recover the file and find out what's missing…"
"…then we'll know why he's gone." completed Hughes.
"Are we going to tell the military that he, in addition to the Elrics, is now missing? Or are we going to contain that too? And how are we going to get the files?"
"Worried about messing with a crime scene?" Hughes' lips twitched, as Hawkeye glared. "Don't worry, I'll come with you and claim that I was "cleaning up the scene" if we get caught. Helps to have a friend in investigations doesn't it?" Hughes teased her. His smile faded, as it tended to when he was around one of the pair without the other. They had the tendency to worry about each other when they weren't in each other's direct line of sight (or in Hawkeye's case, fire) and this tended to leak out into the general atmosphere around them not matter what they did. And Hawkeye was clearly frightened about something. Whether it was for the Colonel as the focal of the plan or the Colonel as a person wasn't clear, but it didn't really matter which. She was concerned and that was what was important. Hughes used his "clumsy" attempts at throwing the two together to give them a common enemy, and it may have worked. The two avoided all thoughts of their relationship so adamantly that they had nearly convinced everyone but their closest coworkers that there wasn't any attraction, and they worked so hard to avoid it that they didn't notice his gentle manipulation. If Hawkeye was so worried, then she may finally be breaking under the strain of retaining a professionalism, Though knowing the Lt. it wouldn't last long, just long enough for her to find the missing Colonel and thoroughly scold him for disappearing or not being adequately prepared for a fight, whichever the case may be. But she would never leave the Colonel, because she believed in his goal, just as much as Hughes and the rest of the team did. However, Hughes was one of the few who thought as far as to after the rebellion. His next goal after unseating the corrupt military government was to see his best friend married and happy like himself. Hughes assumed that Hawkeye would be the final, lucky lady. She was the only women with whom Mustang had a relationship (whether professional or not) based on mutual admiration, trust and dedication rather than image and popularity. And his friendship with her was the only relationship that had lasted longer than a night- about twenty years longer- and that was plenty of time to get to know the intimate details about someone. Not to mention that Mustang saw her as a person, not just the temporary date he considered many of his other women- which was what set him across as a womanizer. Half the time though, Mustang's dates were just a way to make Hawkeye jealous, or a way to get out of work early (which Hawkeye normally got revenge for the next day. Not that it every stopped the Colonel) It was past time for the two to just get together for heaven's sake. Enough with claiming "the country came first". Their excuses and denials drove him nuts. His hopeful musings were punctured when Hawkeye retorted in a steely voice "If we loose the Colonel, this country will be doomed. We'd better go find him" with that she reverted to her professional persona, and whirled to exit the room. Well, no such luck today. Still, if he was so easily deterred by such small obstacles as these, then he would have given up working with the Colonel years ago. "Lets go recover those files."
Hawkeye tried to casually stroll up to Mustang's house, but was certain she wasn't succeeding in the least. Wouldn't the neighbors notice this was the second time she'd driven up within the hour? Wouldn't they notice how tense she was, and that she wasn't driving and that there was another military person with her…. gritting her teeth she laboriously pulled herself away from the edge of panic. Just act normal she thought You're just a friend who often stops by this man's house. Act normal. You're always hanging around here. It your job. Now shut up and do it. Reaching the stoop, she bent down, memorized the order in which the papers had fallen, as Hughes had taught her too, then gathered up the strewn information. Without looking around, a surprising challenge, she stood up, gently knocked on the door and waited, as if expecting Mustang to actually answer the door. After a few seconds, she strolled back to the car and slipped in, taking pains to portray an image of calm. Hughes slowly pulled out and they drove off. A huge sigh of relief exited their lips a few streets later as they reached the headquarters. After a minute they exited the car and marched to Mustang's office.
The teams' heads shot up the minute the door opened. The quick check up on the Colonel should have taken several minutes. Hawkeye had been gone for an hour and a half. Fuery opened his mouth to ask, but Hawkeye immediately deflected his questions with a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head. She walked over to her desk, grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper as she began to talk. "So how much paperwork got done?" Quick shuffling of papers and coughing followed her remark. Hawkeye folded the scrap, grabbed another piece of paperwork and passed both to Havoc. He took both without blinking, and glanced over the paper while subtly reading Hawkeye's message. Missing. Casually as possible, he dropped the note on Breda's pile who scanned it, then passed it on. As the message made its way around the table, Lieutenant Hawkeye settled herself and Hughes at Mustang's desk, ignoring Falman's look of curiosity, first directed at her back, then at the note slowly smoldering in Havoc's ashtray. Hughes placed the folder he was carrying down next to the file they'd recovered and began conversing with the First Lieutenant in low tones.
"So here are copies of everything I gave to Roy." Hughes started as they began matching the papers together. "What is missing?" A few minuets of silence, punctuated by increasingly interested looks from the rest of the now concerned team, passed before Hawkeye held up a paper. "Do you have the match for this one?" Hughes pointed over at a pile without looking up, which Hawkeye proceeded to search without luck. "Its not here." They exchanged a look.
"Look again to make sure."
Hawkeye re-searched the pile, then the others around it. "Not here." she restated, when the match did not appear. "Bingo" Hughes said. "Let's see it."
Hawkeye brought the paper over to the team's worktable, and everyone gathered around it. "Alright" she stated, "Mustang's missing and it's related somehow to this paper. "
There was a moment of intense concentration before Havoc threw up his hands in frustration. "But what does this have to do with Mustang?" he yelled, only to be immediately shushed. "It doesn't make sense."
"There has to be a relation." Falman muttered. "But why was it included in the first place?"
"I took everything the Elrics had accessed in the last six months. This was one of those files." Hughes replied, holding up the newspaper clipping. Across the top of the clipping was blazoned the title "Mangled Body Found Underground: Large Beast Suspected". Fuery walked back from Mustang's desk. "Maybe if we search through the rest of the information, we'll find something that connects this to his disappearance." Havoc and Breda nodded enthusiastically in agreement while Falman just sighed. Divvying up the information, they settled back down at their table and set to work. Hawkeye took the other copy of the file and strode up to the door with Hughes. "Thank you for the help sir. We'll call you if anything else comes up, or if we need more information." Hughes smiled and exited the Colonel's office as the Lieutenant shut the door behind him. Returning to her desk she retrieved a notebook from a locked drawer in her desk, that was almost invisible to the uninformed eye. Opening it, she began comparing the notes she'd compiled for the coup to the papers on her desk.
Hawkeye leaned back from her desk with a barely audible groan. She was done with all the notes she could possibly take today, but hadn't managed to uncover many connections. Why had the Elrics been researching… she consulted her notebook… chimeras and military death records, and how was any of this connected with Mustang? Resignedly, she walked over to the coat rack, where her jacket hung alone, the others having left long before. Hayate perked up his head as she donned her coat, and packed the file in her bag, which she threw over her shoulder, and grabbed the notebook. "We can go now" she reassured her patiently waiting dog. "I'm getting hungry too."