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Ten Sides of Royai
4. Prologue To A Fateful Meeting
By CEA
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Years passed in general silence. Riza was introduced to Major Hughes, Roy's best friend, and his wonderful girlfriend, Gracia, whom Riza quickly became close to, happy to find another female when she was perpetually surrounded by men. Sergeant Havoc became Lieutenant Havoc, and their small but potent group was rounded out by Sergeant Breda and a young, kind-hearted man named Fuery. Roy slacked, and Riza cut her hair short. He looked at her when she walked in, golden tresses cut around her ears, and asked, in typical Roy-fashion, "Lieutenant, what the hell did you do to your hair?"

She regarded him with narrowed eyes, as she set her folder down on her desk. "I cut it, sir."

"Why?"

Riza gave him one of her famous looks as she sat down and began to file paperwork. "Do I have to have a reason to cut my hair, sir?"

"When you cut it that short," he said, raising his eyebrows with the accent, "yes."

She ignored him, something she'd become quite good at by this time. It did her little good, though, as Second Lieutenant Havoc took that moment to amble through the doorway, yawning. He stopped in his tracks as he saw her, eyes wide. "Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

"Yes, Lieutenant Havoc?" she replied, starting to become very annoyed.

"Why did you cut your hair so short?"

She sighed, putting her head in her hands. "If I'd known it would be this much trouble, I wouldn't have."

Jean shared a glance with Roy, before pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and bringing it up to his mouth. As he fished around in a pocket for the lighter, he commented, "this doesn't have anything to do with The Incident, does it?"

The capital letters were extremely evident, especially when Riza shot him a deathglare he missed as he finally found the lighter. Roy perked up immediately. "The Incident? What Incident?"

"There was no Incident," Riza said clearly, still glaring at Havoc.

Who completely missed it, still intent upon lighting his cigarette. "Sure there was," he continued. "You know what I'm talking about, Lieutenant Hawkeye. In the cafeteria-"

He was cut off as a wadded-up piece of paper knocked the finally-lit cigarette out of his hand to the floor. He looked up in annoyance, and his expression changed completely when he saw Riza's face.

"Right," he said stiffly. "There was no Incident."

"Oh no you're not," Roy countered, looking put-out. "If there was an Incident, I want to hear about it."

"There was no Incident," Riza and Jean said in a unison monotone, he looking cowed under the force of the glare she was still giving him.

Unfortunately for Riza, Fuery chose that moment to walk in, bright-eyed as usual. The look on his face changed completely upon viewing Riza. "Lieutenant Hawkeye!" he declared, surprised. "You didn't have to cut your hair just because-"

"Shhh!" Havoc hissed, looking terrified of Riza, who looked ready to explode.

Fuery looked confused, glancing between the three people in the room. He settled back on Riza, still looking concerned. "The Incident wasn't that bad, Lieutenant, I don't-"

"There was no Incident!" Riza and Jean declared in unison.

"Yes there was!" Roy cried, slapping his hands on his desk and looking positively gleeful at finally having some potential dirt on his pristine female Lieutenant. "There was, and none of you are hiding it from me!"

"Colonel!" Riza snapped, giving him the full force of her heated glare, "I believe you have plenty of paperwork to continue, and if you don't, I am already in a very bad mood."

The door opened, and in walked Breda, yawning as always. He stopped in his tracks, looked at Riza for a long pause, and then a grin split his face. "Oooh, Brigadier General Grand is going to have a field day once he's seen this, Lieutenant. Has he seen you yet?"

The room had gone deathly silent as the gleeful look fell off of Roy's face to be replaced by one of deathly calm. Riza looked stricken; Havoc and Fuery had both sat down, and were studiously staring at their respective desks.

"What," Roy said slowly and quietly, "has Brigadier General Grand to do with this?"

He was staring at Riza, and she met his gaze silently. Both remembered well everything that had transpired between them those years before, and Roy couldn't help but feel overprotective of Riza sometimes. She'd probably shoot him if he ever told her that, but he didn't deny its truth. "Lieutenant, I asked you a question."

She didn't answer, merely stared at him impassively, and somewhat wearily.

"Brigadier General Grand," Breda said tactlessly as he plunked down into his chair, missing entirely the tenseness of the room (Roy wondered vaguely, as the man spoke, how some one so dense could be so good at chess), "has asked Lieutenant Hawkeye out every day for the past month."

"Apparently," Riza cut in a tense voice, her body shaking slightly, "ignoring the blatant disregard of the No Fraternization rule."

"And yesterday-"

"Sergeant!" Riza cut in, her eyes closed. Her hands were balled into fists at her side. She looked the closest to crying Roy could remember since-

"What did he do?"

Riza sighed, her body sagging. "Never mind it, Colonel."

"I want to know, Riza."

"No, sir."

"Riza-"

"Sir, I don't-"

"Dammit, Lieutenant!" he interrupted, looking supremely pissed off. "You are my subordinate, under my jurisdiction, and I want to know what happened that upset you so much that you cut your hair - something that, quite frankly, is a very immature action from you, Lieutenant."

There was absolute silence for what felt like a very long time. "He, um," Havoc cut in, fishing around desperately for a cigarette and looking somewhat panicked as he glanced between Roy and Riza several times, "sort of... groped Lieutenant Hawkeye in the lunch line yesterday."

Roy was very silent. His face was like a stone mask. Riza's eyes were squinted closed again, and her hands were balled into fists so tight, her knuckles were completely white. "He didn't entirely get away with it, though," Havoc added, his mouth full of a cigarette. "Hawkeye hit him where it hurts, if you know what I mean. And Sergeant Breda threw him out of the room, in effect."

"Did you tell Fuhrer Bradley?" Roy cut in.

Riza's head snapped up to stare at him. "Of course not."

"You know he wanted to hear if anything else happened."

"It's been more than a year since Ishbal, sir. He won't remember."

Roy gazed at her levelly. "You know he will, Lieutenant. He's almost as protective of you as I am."

She looked surprised, as did the others in the room. Roy's face flushed moments after he said the statement, but he continued to glare at her.

She sighed. "Fine," she said. "I'll tell him. But nothing will come of it."

"See that you do, Lieutenant. Now, I believe we all have paperwork to do."

It was his common cover-up, after messy situations: pretend to focus on work.

Really, Havoc noticed, though he would never say anything, Colonel Mustang spent most of the day watching Lieutenant Hawkeye. But he could have imagined it.

That was the last time General Grand approached Riza in any form but a professional one, those his eyes would still smoulder at her from time to time. She spoke with the Fuhrer, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Brigadier General Grand disappeared for two weeks, starting the next day. There was a rumor that his mustache had been mysteriously burned off, somehow, while he was standing over the lunch line, leaving him with a rather ugly scar across his upper lip. He waited until it was covered up before returning to work. He never did comment on Riza's hair, though she found she liked it short, and kept it that way for years.

Riza entered the building like she always did, though today the weather was nice and she'd walked a little slower to work. She wasn't late yet, though, so she walked up the stairs at her usual pace. Various office doors were open as she walked down the familiar corridor, and various persons of higher and lesser rank than she saluted her on her way past. She nodded to them with a tight smile, her bag held firmly in one grip.

"Lieutenant!"

She glanced behind her. Fuery had just arrived, and was a few feet behind her, having entered from a different door. "Good morning," she greeted him as they both walked towards their office.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Hawkeye," he agreed. "It's a lovely day outside."

She smiled to herself. Fuery was really much more light-hearted than any of them, on any given day, rendering him extremely likeable. It was one reason they all liked to tease him so much, though none of them would ever admit it.

Much like how the boys all enjoy frustrating me, she thought annoyedly.

Fuery opened the door for her, and they stepped into the office. Her eyebrows rose immediately.

Havoc, Breda, and Mustang were all crouching on top of the desks, looking horrified. Breda was white as a sheet.

"What's going on?" she asked, confused.

As one, the men all pointed to the center of the floor. Sitting there, a dead black against the carpet, was an enormous spider.

"Kill it," Roy commanded immediately, in a strangled voice.

She looked at them in amazement. "You have got to be kidding me," she declared, watching as the arachnid stretched one hairy leg and Breda let out a strangled cry and backed up against the wall.

Riza glanced down at Fuery, who was staring at the spider. "Poor thing," he said quietly, but she noticed that he was also very pale. "It can't help being ugly."

"You're afraid, too?" she asked. He nodded mutely, stepping back over the threshold. She looked immediately at Roy. "One of the foremost experts in alchemy, with the power to burn anything in sight, and you can't take care of a little spider?"

Evidently, this hadn't occurred to him. His eyes went wide, fear momentarily evaporating as he recalled that he was, in fact, the Flame Alchemist. Then he shrunk in on himself again. "But what if I miss and it comes after me?" he asked.

She stared at him, before glancing around, but Havoc and Breda seemed to agree with him. "This is ridiculous," she muttered, dropping her bag to the floor. She took a few steps forward, bent down, and deftly scooped the wriggling spider into the cup of her hands. Breda and Havoc made distressed noises and Roy went whiter than before. She strode over to the open window, and, leaning out, gently set the spider on the ledge before stepping back and shutting the window.

"You didn't kill it!" Havoc protested.

"It didn't deserve to die," Riza responded dryly, plopping down into her seat. "Can everyone please get on with their work? Lieutenant Colonel Mustang, I believe you have a meeting with General Hakuro at 1300 hours?"

Roy had stepped back onto the ground, and some colour had returned to his face. "Yes, Lieutenant," he said, straightening his uniform and trying to retain some measure of dignity.

Riza rolled her eyes and pulled a sheet of paperwork closer, going at it in the small, neat penmanship she was known for.

It was raining, and Roy was acting bitchy and morose, as usual. Riza had grabbed her stack of paperwork and traded desks with him, so that she was sitting directly in front of the window and he was across the room, hunkered over his coffee and wearing an extra jacket, his black hair falling in front of his eyes as he worked harder than usual to avoid listening to the sound of the one thing he hated more than war.

Riza loved rain. If she had it her way, it would rain all of the time. The window was cracked part-way open, despite Roy's vehement protests, so that she could inhale that cold, clean smell of rain. It was her favourite scent, and had been since she was a small child splashing around in the streets of Central in too-large pants stolen from male cousins. A small smile was on her face, and her red eyes had a certain easy-going light to them that she normally lacked. Upon noticing this abnormal behavior, Roy had relented, and thus had produced the extra jacket he was currently wrapped in.

Havoc had called in sick - also a normal occurrence on rainy days, which had long ago established his agreement with Roy that rain was a horrible thing - but Breda and Fuery were in, both of them indifferent to the weather and doing their office work as usual.

Roy leaned back and sighed, the jacket slipping off of him as he morosely stood, coffee cup in hand. "Anyone need a refill?" he asked quietly.

Breda held his mug up immediately. Riza tipped hers over to see it still mostly-full. Coffee just didn't taste right mixed with the smell of rain. "No thank you."

He nodded at her, disappearing. Seconds later, as she had begun to sign papers again, the door burst open to admit a tallish, smiling, bespeckled man. He approached her desk without preamble. "Riza!" he declared warmly, bending down to embrace her. A smile came to her face unbidden, though she returned the hug half-heartedly.

He stepped back, grinning at the opened window. "No wonder Roy wouldn't talk to me in the hallway."

"The Colonel and rain have never gotten along," she agreed.

Hughes propped himself on the edge of the desk. She paused. Something had changed about him. "Major, you look like you're... glowing."

"I am."

She leaned back, raising an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

A self-satisfied but deeply happy smile appeared on his face. "I proposed to Gracia last night."

Riza's mouth dropped open. Breda and Fuery were staring at him for a moment, before she let out a loud, happy laugh that set the other two off grinning. It wasn't often Riza showed such emotion, but the engagement of two of her best friends was certainly cause for celebration. "My god, Major! Congratulations!" she said, hugging him tightly.

"Yeah, awesome job, man," Breda agreed, clapping him on the back. Fuery smiled self-consciously and offered his congratulatory remarks, as well. Maes was grinning wolfishly, looking extremely pleased with himself. Then he frowned. "I was hoping to tell Roy. Of course he has to be my best man. But I suppose I picked the wrong day, not that I knew what the weather would be like last night."

Riza shrugged, still smiling, though smaller. "You know Roy."

"True," Maes agreed. "I can always tell him tomorrow."

"We should crack open some champagne," Breda commented. "Or at least some of that brandy the Lieutenant Colonel keeps stashed away in the broom cupboard."

Riza's smiled changed quickly to a frown. "No drinking on the premises, Sergeant."

"Oh, come on Lieutenant," Breda countered, making a move towards the aforementioned cupboard. "It's not everyday that one of our friends gets engaged."

"No, Sergeant. I removed that brandy last week."

Breda's face fell. Maes just shook his head, still glowing. "Anyway, Riza, Gracia mentioned that she wanted you to stop by sometime soon. To talk about women things, I suppose. I told her I'd mention it, but I have a feeling she'll rope you into one of those many group things she does with all of the other officers' wives, and I know how they drive you crazy."

Riza placed a soft hand on his shoulder, smiling. "I don't mind, Major, and I have to congratulate her anyway. I'll come by tomorrow after work if that's fine with her."

"It should be," he said with a grin. "But alas!" he lamented. "I have paperwork to do and people to boss around. And I have to find Roy and shove a bit of sunlight in his life, since he wants some so badly." He embraced Riza and flashed a grin to the men. "I will undoubtedly drop by tomorrow. Don't breathe a word of this to Roy before I do, though."

"Yes, Major," the others responded, as he strolled out, still glowing and with an obvious hop to his step.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful, the finest Roy could remember attending. It was old-fashioned, in a Wedding House Gracia's parents had been wedded in years ago near the edge of Central. She wore an elegant white set off with light pink roses, and her bridesmaids - one of which was Lieutenant Hawkeye - wore similar but less fancy strapless gowns of the same pale rose-colour.

Maes was very handsome in his black tuxedo and black shirt. The only colour came in the form of a cream tie and the pink rose Gracia had fastened to his pocket. Roy was proud to be his best man, wearing a dark grey tuxedo set off by a silver tie. The other bridesmaids hadn't stopped staring at him since his entrance, he had noticed with a smirk.

Riza had really blown him away.

He couldn't remember having seen her dressed up sans Military wear since that ball howeverlongago, and that night she had looked simply amazing. Her hair had been styled so it curled slightly, despite its shortness, and the pink dress brought out the deep red of her eyes and accented how perfectly pale she was. He had asked her to dance (twice) and couldn't take his eyes off, until she politely informed him that he needed to stop staring. He no longer remembered what it was he said, but he did remember that it had made her blush deeply.

He went home with one of those other bridesmaids that night, a blonde girl with brown eyes and small, pink lips that only smiled hesitatingly. She had smelled of rosemary instead of gunpowder, and he left before the night was through.

Winter came, as it always does, and with it a sense of peace stole over Headquarters. Riza began to wear a crimson turtleneck under her military wear, but Roy, who never seemed to get cold except when it was raining, strolled around as he always did, asking people jokingly if they needed a fire.

The heating system broke one very cold day in January. Almost immediately the entire building seemed to drop below 15 degrees, and then lower and lower as the thermostat approached 0. Riza, small as she was, was one of the first affected, wrapped in several blankets and shivering, still trying to do paperwork. Her bare hands were shaking so hard, though, her signature looked more like a mess than any legible handwriting, and she sighed in frustration several times before finally succumbing to the cold like everyone else and whipping the pen across the room.

"Why hasn't this been fixed yet?" she asked in what would have been an annoyed voice if her teeth weren't chattering so fiercely.

"I d-dunno," Havoc replied. His hands, also bare, were shaking too badly to be able to light a cigarette, and he was beginning to get a crazy look in his eye from lack of nicotine.

Roy, who, per usual, wasn't nearly as affected as everyone else, was happily showing off to Riza, signing his papers with a flourish she'd never seen and wrapped in only a single, light blanket. He looked up with a grin to find Riza glaring at him.

They stared at each other for several moments, before his smirk dropped and he got up. Walking over to her, he slipped the blanket off and added it to the bundle already around her. He pulled her trash can, filled with old paper, closer to her desk, and, with a snap of his fingers, set it on fire.

Her eyes went very wide. "C-Colonel," she admonished, "that's military property, what if it-"

"It won't melt," he said, grinning. "Give me a little more credit than that, Lieutenant." He promptly did the same to the rest of his subordinates' trash cans, who happily gathered them, except for Riza's, and sat in a circle in the center of the room, basking in the new-found warmth.

That done, Roy pulled his over, set it on fire as well, and grabbed Havoc's chair, sitting next to her after grabbing his own paperwork from the desk. "Let's get this finished, eh?" he asked.

Riza offered a small, tentative smile as she warmed up, and he found himself unable to look away from her, the expression so odd and warm on her face.

Her hands emerged from the blankets, still shaking and cold-looking. He reached out to grab them.

She looked up in surprise, and they stared at one another for what seemed like an eternity. He let go momentarily, slowly slipping off his gloves, before taking her hands back and, in turn, putting them on her cold, cold hands. The gloves, much too big for her hands, swallowed them up, and he pulled the burning trash cans between their two desks, holding her hands over them.

"Better?" he asked.

She nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Alright." He grinned and turned back to his paperwork, letting go of her hands.

Havoc pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and held it over the fire, grinning delightedly as it finally lit up.

In May, as the weather warmed and the sun appeared happy in the sky once more, Gracia and Hughes announced the impending arrival of their child, due sometime in January. Therer was much celebration and happiness, and Riza and Roy pledged whatever help they could give the happy couple.

Work was the same as always: paperwork, alchemical research, the annual alchemy exam Roy always attended and the never-ending relocation of Ishbalan refugees. Fuhrer Bradley appeared in their office one day, accompanied by the same big-buisted, black-haired secretary Riza remembered from Ishbal. He spoke to Roy in hushed tones in a separate room, ostensibly about a new assignment, and Riza continued on with her paperwork, feeling uncomfortably aware of the beautiful secretary's stare the entire time.

Bradley emerged with Roy a short time later. She looked up, and the Fuhrer saw her and smiled gently. "Lieutenant Hawkeye," he acknowledged. "I trust you've been well?"

"Yes, sir, thank you," she replied quietly.

"No more Incidents?"

The capital letter was evident when he spoke it as well. She gritted her teeth in annoyance. "No, sir. I've been perfectly well."

"Good," he said, smiling still. "Keeping these men in line, then?"

"As always," she replied dryly.

"Ah, women. The better half of the species. We need them to tell us what to do," Bradley announced, clapping a hand to his secretary's back. The woman shot him an annoyed look. "Isn't that right, men?"

"Definitely," Falman commented, watching Breda snore across the room. Fuery was merely smiling.

"Well," the Fuhrer said, "I must let you get back to your work, and I must get back to mine."

The stood (except for Breda) and saluted him as he left. Roy hadn't spoken. Riza glanced at him. He looked troubled.

Their eyes met and he yanked his head towards the door. "Coffee, Lieutenant?"

"I think, so, sir," she agreed, standing. They shuffled out of the room, checking to make sure no one was in the hallway, before walking purposefully down the hallway and ducking into the same side clost they always used for coversations like this.

"So?" Riza asked.

"He wants me to find some alchemist who disappeared years ago."

Her forehead creased. "Who?"

"Light Hohenheim," Roy said gravely. He looked uncertain. "What troubles me is how secretive he's being about it. I've never heard of this man before, and the amount of discretion seems ludicrous."

"Do you want me to figure out who he is?"

"If you can," Roy said, nodding. "While I try to find his whereabouts." Roy's mouth twitched. "It would have been easier if the Fuhrer had given me any information on him. All he would say was that Hohenheim is dangerous, and powerful."

They stared at one another for a bit, and then she nodded. "Well, we have some work to do, then, on top of everything else."

"Give some of your paperwork to Breda, and wake him up. Then start the search."

"Yes, sir."

Riza had almost no luck, and Roy had even less. All she found were some papers describing a transaction between the Military and Light Hohenheim. What the transcation was, and when it took place, were both missing from the official documents.

More time passed. Summer was in full bloom.

A letter was transferred to their office, addressed to the man who had previously been there, but who had died years ago.

It was a request, from two young boys trying to find their father. Their mother had died.

They were Hohenheim's sons.

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A/N: That took me so much longer than I thought it would. Apparently I'm not quite as good at coming up with cute little scenarios as I thought I was. Oh well.

So, sorry I took so long. The next chapter will undoubtedly be huge, and undoubtedly take me forever (for one, I probably should watch the entire series over again), as it covers episodes 1-24 or 25. Admittedly, I can cut out stuff where Roy and Riza weren't there, which is good because otherwise it might take me years :-P But yeah. Sorry for the wait.

Reviewing is appreciated

Love,
CEA