"You're sure you want to be in the office today."

"Sir." The tone is a clipped warning, the title employed partly because they are already within the walls of Central Command and partly because Riza is scolding him for second-guessing her decision. She walks at a brisk pace at his back, ever professional and he halts so she will, turning to face her.

"Riza," he says and she blinks at him.

"Roy," she replies, half-mockingly.

"I'm serious."

"So am I, sir." Her face is impassive and he wonders if she's daring him to contradict her outright. "If anything, I am more fit to work than we had hoped."

It's not an attempt at a joke, merely a statement of fact, and one Roy cannot refute, but he's not speaking of her physical condition. With a resigned sigh, he nods at her and continues on down the hall, opening the door to the office and ushering her through.

The mood is light inside, bustling, if not with work than with jokes and coffee, and he feels oddly out of place in it. Riza makes her way immediately for her own desk and Roy sees no reason not to do the same.

"Mornin', sirs," Breda greets them, tipping a paper cup in their direction. Roy acknowledges him with a look before continuing on to his own office, aware of the tension they've cast on the outer room by the good four pairs of eyes that follow him. His door has barely shut before there's a knock on it.

He sighs, slipping out of his jacket and dropping it over the back of his chair. "Come in."

He hears the door open and the soft scrape of it closing again. "Something I can do for you, Major?" he asks the window.

He listens to Havoc clear his throat. "Uh," he coughs. "Armstrong asked me to deliver this to you." There's the gentle slap of a file falling to his desk and then a pause, during which Jean's presence doesn't retreat.

"Thank you," Roy says, and nothing more.

"... Permission to speak freely, sir."

Roy says, "Granted," against his better judgment.

"You and the colonel seem a little... strained."

Roy clears his throat and pivots away from the window. "Now, Jean, this wouldn't be you prying into my marital affairs, would it?"

"No, sir."

"Good."

"Just wonderin' if you had a fight or something, is all."

Roy almost wants to explain to Havoc that that is indeed the very definition of prying, but he'd like out of this conversation as soon as possible and such an elucidation is not going to encourage the other to leave. "No."

"Oh."

Roy lifts an eyebrow at the disappointment in the muttered response. "Is that all?"

Havoc shifts from one foot to the other and Roy resists the urge to simply order him to stand at ease for his own comfort. "Was kind of hoping the problem was just domestic, sir."

"There is no problem, Havoc." It's not entirely a lie. There's nothing to be solved, just... nothing.

"So, this has nothing to do with the doctor's appointment the colonel had this morning?"

Roy was reaching for the file Jean had dropped, but he freezes, hand hovering over it, before looking up to meet the concerned gaze.

"See, I was... hoping it was nothing to do with it."

Roy watches him until he's sufficiently satisfied that he's making Havoc nervous, then he plops back into his chair, dragging a tired hand over his face. "We had thought-hoped... we had hoped that Riza was pregnant." He forces a smile and looks up. "Another false alarm, that's all. Nothing terminal."

"I'm sorry, sir."

Roy shrugs a shoulder, eye back on the file.

"Was the colonel very disappointed?"

Roy doesn't know how to answer that. She was, is, yes, more so than he ever would have imagined when they were first married, when Riza had hardly seemed the type to want such common or emotional things as motherhood, but he hardly thinks his wife would appreciate him spreading that around. He knows she would rather them all just assume, accept it, and then treat her no differently.

She's a woman, yes, and she sees no reason to bring that to the office.

"You know her," Roy says, finally lifting the file and flicking it open, hoping it will be a cue for Havoc to leave. "She's a pillar of strength. She'll be fine." He glances over the cover sheet, curiously.

"Yes, sir. Right, sir." Havoc hovers momentarily, observing Roy's intent expression and furrowed brow, and then there's the sound of him turning to go.

"Major," Roy calls after him and he halts.

"Sir?"

Roy lifts the manilla folder and demands, "What is this?"

Havoc's forehead crinkles and he lifts his shoulders. "He didn't tell me, sir," he says. "Just said it needed your attention."

Roy stares at him, then back down at the group of papers, expression dark.

"Something wrong?"

Roy sighs. "No," he says. "Dismissed."

Roy's not watching Havoc to discern whether or not the Major is satisfied with the answer, but he throws a lazy salute and heads back into the outer office, so he can't be overly curious. Roy gazes at the documents and the photos paper-clipped to them, at the symbols and swirls.

"Interesting," he tells the empty room.