A/N – The story is continuing at last. Continued thanks to those who haven't given up on this story. I'm willing to give details about my rather abrupt and unexplained absence to those who are curious, but I must inform everyone in advance that review replies will be delayed until I have viable internet access again. As another note, I came up with the idea for this story around this time last year, and I'm sticking to my original plan regardless of any recent or future manga developments that would seem to be conflicting.
Chapter Nine – Colonel Mustang's School of Dance
"Do you dance Lieutenant?" He looked at her, face maddeningly poised on the edge of a grin.
"No," she replied frostily. "Could you please stop leaning over me, Sir?"
But he was not to be deterred so easily. He had expected this reaction from her when he made up his mind to ask her. She was good at putting up a front of absolute resistance when she wanted to, but he was good at badgering.
"Not with me?" he asked innocently, "Or not with anyone?"
This remark seemed to bring her to a breaking point. She pinched her lips together and gave him a scorching admonitory glare, or at least she attempted to. She blinked several times, and he noticed a slight twitch of uncertainty in her jaw when he leaned closer. But his victory was short-lived.
"Not with anyone." She maneuvered around the hedge of his arms and slid to the other side of the desk in one fluid motion. "And I do not see the relevance of your asking the question because I do no intend to go to the ball next week anyway."
Roy's eyebrows jumped up. "Poor General Bennet. You have spurned him grievously."
"I don't even know General Bennet, Sir." She pulled up a ream of files and shielded her face behind them under the guise of careful study. "And neither do you for that matter, so what are you on about?"
Roy looked around at his subordinates. Inevitably they were all watching his scene with Lieutenant Hawkeye, and they didn't even attempt stealth. Havoc was grinning sardonically. Ah, arrogance. Moments ago strolling up to Hawkeye and asking her to the ball had seemed like a perfectly logical and sane idea. He didn't think she'd have the gall to refuse him in front of an audience, but who was he kidding? Hawkeye had no qualms about making him look like an idiot in front of anyone and everyone when he deserved it. In fact, he suspected she rather enjoyed puncturing his ego at times. He wished he could swallow every word he'd spoken since he'd reentered the office. By the look on Havoc's face, he was enjoying his strikeout far too much.
A sensible man would have quit while he still had a shred of dignity. He didn't know what possessed him to keep after the subject.
"Do I detect some hostility, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"Colonel, I'm not going to that ball." The spiky tips of her hair bobbed over her screen of paperwork and the voice that came from behind her barrier was downright menacing. "End of story."
He smirked, mostly for the benefit of the men watching him. "We'll see about that."
He didn't attempt to get a straight answer out of her until much later. He decided the others didn't need to witness his failing if his plans went awry a second time, so he waited until they had all checked out for the day. That had given him several hours to stare at a pile of various forms and contemplate a strategy to persuade her to go to the ball with him, but time to ponder had not bolstered his confidence. He still had no idea what he would say.
For some reason all of his snazzy one-liners and Mustangisms fell short of acceptable. Those might have worked on other women, but not his First Lieutenant. She was much too smart for all of that nonsense, and she had a sophisticated insincerity radar. What did one say to impress a lady like Hawkeye anyway? He mulled over his options, and what he came up with was just short of disastrous. He had nowhere to begin, and there were several crippling flaws to all of his logic.
In the first place, he wasn't even sure his intentions were honorable. He could try to rationalize his reasons until his eyes crossed, but the truth was that he wanted her to be seen with him. General Grumman had just impressed upon him that their appearance of professional distance was important now more than ever, but territoriality had reared its ugly head. Hakuro would be there, and he had a perverse need to observe how he and Hawkeye responded to each other, on his own terms of course. He wanted her by his side, and he wanted Hakuro to acknowledge this. It felt like picking at a wound, it felt like he was jealously guarding something that wasn't his to keep, and it felt very childish.
In the second place, she was pregnant. He wasn't entirely certain what this meant or entailed. He had never been around a pregnant woman before for any length of time, and he didn't know what a woman was supposed to do when she was pregnant. Was it acceptable for her to appear at a dance? When would she start showing? He could ask Hughes about all those things, but he feared he would end up learning a great deal more than he ever wanted to know about the subject.
In the third place, how in the world was he going to be able to keep his hands off her? If he took her to the ball, it went without saying that they would have to dance and she would probably wear something mouthwatering. Obviously, he would try to stay within the bounds of propriety, but she could be one hell of a temptation sometimes. He didn't want to get slapped for holding her too close, but it was going to take a monumental feat of willpower to keep himself in check, willpower he wasn't entirely certain he possessed in enormous quantities.
In the fourth place, he was never going to hear the end of it from Hughes. The thought of his best friend giving him that knowing half-smile was enough to make him cringe. In Maes's mind, they would be as good as married if he took her to the ball.
By the time the last of his subordinates had trickled out for the evening, he still hadn't thought up a solution to any of these problems. In fact, they only seemed to get worse the more he thought about them, but Lieutenant Hawkeye was finally the only other person in the room. Plan or no plan, he could not waste this opportunity. So he cleared his throat.
Hawkeye looked up from her desk and rolled her eyes. Why did she have a bad feeling she already knew what this was about? "Can I help you, Sir?"
"Why won't you go to the ball, Lieutenant?" He cocked his head and looked at her like a dog waiting to play catch. "I think it's an excellent way for us to honor our dear new General Bennet and support our glorious military. It's the patriotic thing to do, and besides, I'm sure your figure would be showcased best in a form-fitting dress."
She fought down a rising blush. "Because Sir, I don't dance." She tried to make her expression especially hawkish. "And my figure is none of your concern."
He seemed to consider for a moment. "Hmm . . . I don't believe that."
She couldn't tell which of her statements that was in response to. She had to make him stop looking at her like that. He could have poured a jar of scorpions down her back, and she wouldn't have felt nearly as uncomfortable as he was making her feel now with just a look.
"I . . . I don't know how to dance," she admitted.
"You what?!" He dropped the pen he'd been fiddling with and gaped.
"Stop it." She glared at him until he snapped his mouth closed. "So what if I don't know how to dance? It's not something everybody needs to know how to do. It's trivial. It's meaningless. It's . . ." She made a vague gesture and trailed off into silence.
The Colonel still looked floored. "But Lieutenant, have you ever even tried?"
She clenched her hands together in her lap and stared down at her desktop. "No, not really."
"Not even when you're all alone in your apartment?" he asked. "Don't you ever just dance to yourself when nobody's watching?"
"Occasionally, maybe . . . I guess." She was feeling more and more flustered and embarrassed by the moment. She didn't like conversations she could not control. "But that's not the same thing. I don't know how to dance properly."
Roy's pupils moved rapidly to survey her from head to toe. She could almost see an idea she was not going to like forming in his mind. This was far out of the waters of her usual comfort zone, and it was disconcerting. Guns she could discuss. She knew all about Guns. Dancing was like speaking Xinges.
"I could teach you," he pronounced at last.
She couldn't hold back an unladylike snort of laughter. "Oh, I'm sure you could. Very funny, Sir."
"I'm serious." Roy's solemn expression didn't move, and she realized with a start that he probably was serious. "I'll teach you to dance if you'll come to the ball with me."
"I don't think I'm one of those cases that can be fixed in a week." She smiled ruefully hoping to get a chuckle of agreement from him, but he shook his head decisively.
"I highly doubt that Lieutenant," he murmured. "I've seen the way you move."
She frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"Never mind." He smothered a smile that was bordering on lascivious. "Look, why don't we start right now?"
It was her turn to gape. "Here?!?"
He stood up, pushed in his chair, and stretched. "Why not?"
She shook her head and looked back down at her work. "With all due respect Sir . . . you're nuts."
His shadow fell across her desk. "If I'm nuts, it's partly your fault Hawkeye. You really drive me crazy sometimes. Come on. Get up."
She gave him a very put upon look, but seeing as he was not going to leave her alone, she finally decided to indulge his silly little idea. She rose to her feet, glad to have the buffer of a desk between them, at least momentarily. He was looking at her very strangely, and a dizzying uncertainty was floating up her throat. If he actually intended to dance with her, he was going to have to be very close to her. Something in her wanted that touch and another something was frightened by her own craving. Wasn't she supposed to be fighting these feelings?
He didn't give her a chance to bolt. "Take my hand."
He extended his hand across the desk, and she obeyed his request without blinking. His fingers closed around her palm with surprising delicacy, whisper-light and cool. Their eyes met. The intensity of his gaze made her want to look down and away immediately, but she wasn't about to show any hint of the anxiety racing through her. That would be conceding the battle. She set her chin and didn't break the eye contact as he pulled her out from behind the desk and sidled closer to catch her other hand.
He knew she was nervous. Her stare was hard and uncompromising, but any show of outward composure meant nothing where she was concerned. He also knew she would only get angry, and quite possibly hurt him, if he told her to calm down, so he gave her a small, lopsided smile instead. She tipped her lashes down and looked at him in way that could only be described as hesitant. He never thought he'd see that expression on his Lieutenant's face, and he suspected nobody else ever would. Another expression that was his alone to see.
He couldn't think about how compelling she looked, or he'd lose his composure.
"Now . . . we don't have music, so that makes this a little more difficult . . ." He cleared his throat and looked down. "I think . . . just do what I'm doing with my feet."
He swayed through the steps of a very simple waltz, still holding both of her hands in his even though she remained inert. The effect was like dancing with a coat rack, a beautiful, blonde, lethal coat rack that was looking at him skeptically.
She raised an eyebrow. "Just do what I do? That's your idea of effective instruction?"
His response was swift and visceral. One of his hands moved to her waist and pushed her into motion. She allowed him to steer her closer to his chest, and his body's subtle imposition into her personal space finally forced her to move along with him.
He was as close as he dared. "Just humor me, Lieutenant."
She was staring at his feet, absorbed in the task of reproducing his steps, but that didn't stop her from getting in a retort. "I'd say that statement pretty much sums up our entire relationship, Sir."
"Ouch." He feigned a wince of pain. "Always going straight for the jugular."
She allowed herself to grin. "You need it."
By this time she was following him through the steps. Admittedly, it wasn't a very challenging dance, but he was impressed nonetheless. She was a quick and determined learner. He recognized the slight pucker of concentration in her brow from watching her take aim on the shooting range.
"Very good," he said. "I told you you'd be a natural."
She looked nonplussed. "You're not exactly demanding very much from me."
"Well, I can't teach you everything I know in one night," he smirked. "Besides, I need to save something for tomorrow's lesson."
She stopped abruptly. "Tomorrow's lesson?"
"But of course." He was still smirking at her as if he'd never seen anything more amusing. "And this time I think it should be somewhere besides the office. What do you say to meeting in the gym before work in the morning? You usually arrive at the crack of dawn anyway, and with any luck we'll beat everyone else."
She shook her head and bit down another smile. "I say are you actually going to get up that early?"
"You underestimate my tenacity on this matter, Hawkeye." He gave her a rakish look and started dancing her playfully across the room. "You will learn how to dance, you will come to the ball with me, and you will enjoy every trivial, meaningless moment of it."
The next morning, she decided it must have been sheer lunacy that prompted her to actually show up in the gym at the designated hour. She half-expected to find that he had completely forgotten the appointment, or at the very least, she expected him to show up late. She didn't think the Colonel could possibly be serious about something as inane as dance lessons.
So she was shocked to find him already there, leaning against a row of bleachers and tapping out a nervous cadence with his foot. He had shed his uniform jacket and thrown it in a heap on one of the bleachers, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His dark eyes lit up when he heard the door open. She was surprised to feel the corners her lips lifting up in relief.
He nodded to her and loped over eagerly. "Good morning, Hawkeye."
She slung her bag off her shoulder, put it on a nearby bleacher, and went to work unfastening her overcoat. "You're actually here Sir."
"And you doubted me?" His eyes followed the quick movements of her fingers over the buttons with a strange sort of anticipation. "Come on, let's see if you remember any of the steps from yesterday."
Her overcoat and jacket joined her bag on the bleacher. "Which ones? The waltz or that little improv number you did at the end?
"Both." He held out a hand expectantly.
She flicked out a hand, fingers extended, and made a great show of placing it carefully in his. He watched her hungrily, moistened his lips, and met her eyes. Half-smile. Raised eyebrow. Flashing teeth. There was a humming like tiny wings in her blood and then, with a sharp yank, he snapped her into his arms. A jagged breath scrambled up her throat and came out in a startled gasp.
He grinned. "If we are going to dance for real, I really ought to have my hand on your waist. You know that."
"That's more like my hip, Sir."
"Well, you know, those pants make it kind of hard to tell and all . . ."
"Yeah. Sure. Why don't we just dance?"
So they did. She didn't ask him to move his hand. So he didn't. They flowed across the floor in meandering circles. She picked up variations in the steps with ease, completely absorbed in the precision of her movements. If she concentrated especially hard, she could almost block out any other more troubling thoughts, like the ones that centered on Hakuro, her grandfathers, and her mother. She could almost attribute the jumpy feeling in her stomach to the simple thrill of the Colonel's touch, for indeed, her body's involuntary responses to him, while worrisome in their intensity, where far less unsettling than various alternatives. No matter how dangerous everything was becoming, and even if his fingers on the small of her back were a completely different kind of danger, the solidarity between them was inexpressibly soothing. The gym was quiet except for the rapid click-click of their boots on the floor and the electrical whine of distant ventilation fans.
"Have we run out of conversation then?" he asked after their fourth turn around the floor.
"I can't think of anything to say." She was concentrating on the dance. They had moved from waltzes to a more complicated Xinges Stagtrot somewhere after their first circle around the gym. "Was there something particular on your mind?"
His face grew serious, setting off tiny flares of panic in her chest. "Actually, there is something."
He spun her, outward and then into his arms, close enough to smell whatever delicious scent she wore. "We haven't really talked about what you told me that night at your apartment."
There. He'd mentioned it. He held his breath.
She brushed away a strand of hair that had escaped from her bun and fallen across her mouth. "I told you a great many things that night. What were you wishing to discuss?" Her habits of alcohol consumption? The pills he'd found in her bathroom? Anything and everything that had transpired between them in her bedroom? (Which she may have remembered better than she would ever let on.)
"General Hakuro," he said.
Her reaction was instantaneous and alarming. Her face froze, and all of her muscles stiffened. One moment, she had been a flesh and blood woman, and in the next instant he felt like he was holding a plank of wood. "What about him?"
He tightened his hold, dipping her backwards until she couldn't balance on her own feet. "You told me about Ishbal, but I want to know what happened while I was in the East before Christmas. You have been very dodgy about that part of the story. I've let you leave out those details because I know it must hurt to relive them, but this has gone past the limits of my patience and my sanity. I need to hear you pronounce his guilt, in no uncertain terms."
Her face contorted into what looked like anguish. "Colonel, Please . . ."
"No." She stumbled and almost fell when he suddenly released her, which seemed to be his intent. "What did he do to you, and why won't you tell me anything?"
She clung to his arm for balance and staggered to her feet. Suddenly dancing seemed a lot like fighting. "You wouldn't understand."
"So help me understand, Hawkeye." He took her hands again and pressed his fingers firmly into her wrists, "You've only told me the barest of facts. I need more to go on if I'm ever going to understand. You can start with Ishbal if that's easier. How and why did you even start . . . seeing him, and why did it become recurring? What was he holding over your head?"
"I . . ." She couldn't speak. Telling him about the dirty indiscretions of her youth was like ripping out a sliver. "You don't know what it's like. . . You don't know. It's easier for you to think he forced me, and I was a helpless innocent, isn't it?" She laughed humorlessly. "How could I possibly have had a hand in my own destruction?"
He sped up the pace. "Well you can't honestly tell me you knew what you were doing when you were eighteen."
She stopped, seized control of the dance, and took the lead with narrowed eyes. "Don't presume to know my mind, Sir."
Roy looked bewildered and then lost for a moment. "I'm not . . . I just . . . I just want the truth."
"The truth?" She sashayed him violently around the floor, and he didn't fight her. "The truth is that I cared for him. Perhaps more than I wanted to admit to myself. Nobody ever treated me with that kind of importance before. It is true, I didn't want to sleep with him, but I was so lonely out there in that encampment. Hardly anyone spoke to me, people were dying all around me, and I was starting to feel like I had become something—else, something savage. Nothing felt even remotely real. I would have conceded anything for a measure of affection, something—anything—to remind me that I was still human."
That stopped him. "A measure of affection!?" he hissed. "He just wanted you naked, and you . . . you, let him . . .!"
They had stopped dancing. He dropped her hands with a growl that sounded half pained, half frustrated.
"Be careful, Sir," she whispered. "That savors strongly of jealousy."
He drew in closer to her and spoke quietly. "I don't care what you think it sounds like. I know you are worth more than the fulfillment of his sick fantasies. He doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as you. You can't possibly think he saw you as more than a beautiful plaything. That's an insult to your intelligence."
"Of course I know that now. Of course I do, but I was different back then. We were both different, and I think you know better than most how war changes everything a person will or won't do. You were my only friend out there, and you had become so withdrawn ever since they made you use that ring. I could not reach you when you were being that way. Maybe Hakuro didn't care at all, but at least he paid attention to me." She lashed out on instinct and nearly choked when she heard the acidic words that poured softly from her mouth.
He looked like he'd been sucker-punched in the gut, and she supposed she didn't look any better. She knew that in this instance, speaking the truth was a very grave error. Even worse was the cruel clarity of hindsight. True as her feelings of abandonment had been in Ishbal, all of her assumptions about his disregard for her were wrong, and she knew it. Accusing him of indifference was cutting deeper than usual. Lately, it seemed that half their conversations erupted into violent spats. Feelings were too close to the surface, and their words were starting to draw blood.
She was frantic to close the latest wound and mop up her guilt. "I didn't mean . . ."
"No," he interrupted her. "You're right. I should have told you long ago . . . But I was too busy being a jerk. For some reason I thought I was protecting you by keeping my distance, and I was worried about what my friends might think if they saw us together. Which is ludicrous when I think about it. You've always mattered more than any of them, but I pushed you away with both hands."
He took her hands again. "And now this is driving us apart."
As if to emphasize his point, he pressed their palms together. As if he could stop their slow iceberg drift away from each other by lacing his fingers through hers. The tips of their boots nudged against each other, and she looked up at him. His features were marred with a desperation that went deeper than desire or regret. A new sort of fear had begun to take hold of him, and worry was beginning to carve permanent furrows in his face. For a thoughtless moment, she wanted nothing more than to smooth out his rumpled forehead, but she was quick to remember herself. He was speaking again.
"I don't think I can afford to lose you, Lieutenant. I'm not strong enough anymore." It was a needless confession because, intuitively she had known, and he had known, and everybody around them had known this for quite some time, but his mouth gave the truth a flavor and a tangibility that could not be tactfully ignored.
She responded to his bruising grip by pressing her fingers into the gaps between his knuckles just as tightly. Her message was clear. This was real. She would not break. This was her standing with him, and she wasn't going anywhere.
"I refuse to be lost," she said. "No matter what happens, I won't leave."
He shook his head. "You shouldn't promise things you can't guarantee."
"Life is never guaranteed," she told him. "But I am strong, and I am giving you my word as a soldier and as your friend. While there is breath in my body, I will protect you, and I will not be separated from you. Who says I'm strong enough to do anything else?"
His smile came in a sigh that stirred the curtain of her bangs. "I'll hold you to that, Hawkeye."
Their gazes stuck and held for a sticky moment. Neither was sure what ought to follow the exchange. She had a secret little thought about kissing the edge of his jaw, just to see what he would do, and the thought was becoming more and more appealing with each second that he just stood there staring at her. Dangerously appealing, in fact. She had to distract herself.
"And I thought you were taking me to the ball, Mustang," she said quickly. "Come on. We've got about fifteen minutes before we've got to be in the office, and you promised a dance lesson."
"Alright, alright." He smiled fondly at her. "I suppose that's enough discussion for one day."
The dance lessons continued every morning that week, and Lieutenant Havoc was the first to discover their secret, completely by accident.
In the interest of firming up to impress his latest love interest, he had decided to make an early trip to the gym. He wasn't anticipating anything remotely entertaining about the excursion, so he nearly dropped his bag and his running shoes when he saw his commanding officer skirting the floor with Lieutenant Hawkeye in his arms. Dancing. And they were doing a very serviceable Stagtrot. At first he was quite certain that he was seeing things, but even after he pinched himself several times, the sight before him still remained.
He couldn't seem to keep his mouth closed.
They had both discarded their jackets in a pile (one neatly folded, and one a crumpled wad) in a corner of the bleachers, and they hadn't noticed him walk in. They were too wrapped up in each other.
He smiled and watched them for a moment. They moved together seamlessly . . . that is, until she stepped on his foot.
"Ouch," Roy yelped and steadied her when she almost fell.
"Sorry." She recovered from the near trip. "I told you I'm no good at this one."
Havoc grinned. He could tell even from where he was standing that Roy wouldn't have cared if she danced over his feet again and again. The man was so incredibly whipped. It didn't seem like he could find enough excuses to touch her.
"I was still thinking," he was telling her. "Since you don't seem to like 'Thor,' I've come up with a few back-up names."
Hawkeye sighed. "Such as?"
"Lancelot. I think that's a good name."
She made a choked noise. "Dare I ask what you've come up with for a girl?"
"Rize Junior, of course," he quipped.
Riza Junior? Havoc's eyebrows shot up. What were they talking about? A new cat? In any case, the Colonel seemed to have elicited the desired response from his Lieutenant. She sagged against his chest and dissolved into laughter. Mustang, for his part, could only grin like an idiot, and Havoc was completely beside himself with joy. For once both of his superior officers were in a good mood, and with any luck, he and the others would be able reap the benefits of their infatuated haze.
And if not, the others were still going to owe him a great deal of money when Mustang and Hawkeye came to Bennet's promotional ball together after all.