DISCLAIMER: FullMetal Alchemist does not belong to me. I can put that on a tape recorder for you, so you can play it back any time you like.

PREFACE: Normally, I would not be caught dead saying ‘it came to me in a dream’, but in this case, it sort of did. Or more accurately, a daydream while I was washing my hair. Yes, I’m a little strange.

Anyhoo, this doesn’t fit in with any particular time line, so don’t expect it to suit either the animeverse or the mangaverse.

I’m not quite certain what it is either; if anything, it is a speculation of a scene.

But really, I suppose it doesn’t matter.

And away we go.

Sir, or His Soldier.

It was, he had to admit, a precarious position.

Being in his subordinates shower.

Showers were intensely personal things- you could tell a lot about someone by the type of soap they used.

Her soap was hand-made, bought from a stall down at the Central Park Market, speckled with green amidst the creamy bar, and embossed with a mint leaf.

It explained why she had always smelt faintly of mint and cool rain, along with the stronger, more obvious scent of gunpowder.

Her shampoo was also hand made, herbal and kept in a glass bottle. It sloshed lazily when he shook the bottle, wondering whether he’d be allowed to borrow some, and wash the blood from his hair.

As much as he disliked water –a shower was just a controlled rain storm- he did like the feeling of clean that swept over him as he stood there, wet, naked and more than a little vulnerable as the blood washed from his wounds.

Not that there were many of them- she was very good at her job.

He stood there in silence for quite some time, regarding the shampoo bottle with distrustful onyx eye.

The devil in Riza Hawkeye be damned.

The herbal nature of the stuff he now kneaded into his hair was further reinforced by the scent of lemon, water berry and mint that trickled down his neck with the foam.

Somewhere beyond the bathroom –past the gloing-gloing-gloing sound water makes in human ears- he heard a kettle boil, whistling insistent and high-pitched.

He reached for the face cloth, fingers snatching at air more times than he cared to admit as foam and froth clouded his good eye.

Depth perception’s shot, he thought to himself as he wiped foam from face and bandage.

It was the first clear thought he could remember since arriving here and being hastily bundled into her shower.

The cloth hung idly from callused fingers as he pondered whether it was her that had undressed him, or if he had done it himself.

After due consideration he concluded that it was not important, and reached –groped- for the taps.

The gentle susurration of the falling water had not been noticed until it was turned off.

Distantly, coffee cups clinked against the lip of a milk bottle.

Her towels were soft, and welcome warmth amongst the chill of the air.

His uniform –tattered, dirty, blood-stained- was no where to be found, however, and the cold tiles were really starting to prickle against his bare feet.

A bead of water rolled lazily down his spine as he wrapped himself in the only alternative.

XXX

The glare he gave her as he entered the small, threadbare kitchen dared her to laugh at the sight of her commanding officer –and, indeed, her Furher- clad in a pink dressing gown, embroidered with white roses on sleeves and hem.

He would learn later that it was a much-despised present from a distant maiden aunt; one who had little to no idea about the sort of woman her niece had become.

She did not laugh, merely raised a blonde eyebrow, and handed him a chipped, off-white mug.

He drank greedily, not even pausing to cool the surface of the hot liquid.

“Sorry, sir, but I have no milk.”

He didn’t notice.

Once the coffee had chased the chill from his teeth, he spoke.

“My uniform?”

“Thrown out, sir.” At his look of bridled indignation, she continued. “It was dirty, sir, and ripped up beyond repair. And, frankly, it stank.”

Of old sweat, blood and fear, but she did not say that.

“Your watch is on the bench, sir.”

And so it was, gleaming dully in the late-afternoon light of the shuttered windows. Some part of him should have been outraged at the fact that she had taken such liberties with his clothing and his property, but was not; he recognised such an act as a gesture of kindness, relieving him of the need to ponder whose blood exactly was it that had spilt on his clothing, staining both it and him.

“I took the liberty of arranging for a replacement uniform to be delivered here shortly, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Those cool amber eyes travelled to the dog on the doormat, asleep with all four paws in the air, tail curling on the rough Hessian, pink tongue lolling ridiculously against white teeth.

A moment passed.

The urge to say something about the fact he was standing in her dressing gown, in her kitchen, drinking her coffee from her mug gripped his tongue.

He didn’t, proving the urge for self-preservation is present in all creatures great and small.

Her mug clinked gently against the bench, and she stretched.

Slowly, lazily, unkinking all the muscles that stretched along her spine, and reaching to nearly touch the ceiling with slender fingers.

His eye, no longer focused on the hot, dark coffee, traced a speculative gaze over her, pausing to admire her perfectly oval navel, exposed as her black shirt rode up.

If she noticed, she gave no sign.

“You need to sleep, sir. My bed is already organised on the couch, sir.”

He knew better than to protest the fact that it was her bed, and as he was the guest, he should take the couch; no doubt such an argument would be forestalled by that sharp gaze.

He also chose not to mention that it was only mid-afternoon.

The night had been long, and his body was fast presenting bills for overdue sleep.

“Very well.”

“Good night, sir. My bedroom is the second left on the hallway, sir.”

XXX

He woke to cloying darkness and tangled sheets.

The clock he focused so blearily on proclaimed the hour to be ungodly.

His new uniform sat, folded neatly, on the trunk at the end of the bed.

Even in the gloom, he could see the lighter shadow amongst shadows, illuminated by a thin slit of moonlight that passed through the shuttered blinds.

Whatever night phantom had woke him was gone now, taking with it the last vestiges of sleep that had clung to him.

Fully awake, he wondered briefly if he would be shot for venturing out of his room –her room- at this time of night.

Any risk was outweighed by the promise of coffee, and the short-lived terror of waking to a strange, darkened room. The roars of another’s death in his ears, and the scorched, flickering shadows of the long-dead were given no conscious consideration; their presence in his dreams was not something he wanted to think about.

He dressed –rather clumsily- in the dark, not wanting to figure out how to light her gas-lamp; a strange relic from her father’s past.

He stopped that train of thought where it was.

He had enough thoughts –dangerous, seditious, and treacherous in nature- clouding his mind, and he certainly did not want to entertain any more that could lead to further speculation on the nature of her smooth stomach or perfectly rounded navel.

He strongly suspected that being Furher was no protection against a gunshot to the head.

XXX

Sleep did wonderful things to Riza Hawkeye.

It softened the hardness in her eyes, her face- blurred her edges, lent gentleness and sweet understanding to those half-closed eyes.

Her hair, loose and slightly dishevelled, curled in honey-gold waves around that sleepy face; her voice was rough around the edges, thick with tiredness and some emotion he could not identify.

Perhaps affection.

“Sir?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Want some coffee?”

The proffered mug shook slightly in his unsteady hand.

Did she recognise the faintly maniacal gleam in his eye, or the traces of desperation in his voice? Either way, her compassionate smile helped to blunt his jagged edges.

“Thank you, sir.”

She leant against the bench, cup in hand, pyjama-clad. It was, he thought, rather absurd that his most faithful soldier, his sharpest confidante, his straight-shooting sniper protectress, should wear purple pyjamas with small, fluffy sheep on them.

Black Hayate twitched and whimpered, paws cycling through the air.

Those cool eyes –momentarily tempered by sleep- cast a mother’s gaze upon the pup; something he had long thought impossible for her.

But then, he had not often paused to consider her as a mother, or indeed, a woman; she was always his faithful soldier, his girl Friday, his compatriot.

“Sir?”

Without knowing how, his dark gaze had slid to her face.

“Nothing.”

Still, he did not look away- or was it that he could not?

Her lips twitched. A faint sparkle pierced those amber depths. It was obvious she understood what he did not.

He wondered briefly whether she would hold that against him.

“Sir.”

XXX

The night passed, as it so often does, filled with silence.

It was not awkward, and those few hours of snatched sleep seemed to be enough to ward off his yawns as sunlight melted into the dark kitchen.

The lamp was switched off, coffee cups rinsed out. She disappeared into her room to dress, and his watch was once more clipped to his belt.

Black Hayate whined twice, was let out, and returned some twenty minutes later.

He shaved, using the cut throat razor that once belonged to her father; the one she had handed him with a carefully blank expression.

She handed him his hat, and straightened it on his head, pausing to brush a few strands of dark hair from the bandaged wound where one eye should have been.

She did not comment on the merest brush of her fingers against his skin; he followed her lead.

Her hair was, as always, impeccably neat- no trace of the woman she had been last night.

She was, once more, his soldier.

Her eyebrow quirked at his gaze, no less speculative or focused for all that it came from a single eye.

He opened the door for her; the perfect gentleman.

“Thank you, sir. I contacted the others this morning while you shaved, sir. They’re waiting for us at HQ, sir.”

He nodded as she locked the door beyond her, her dog squeezing a whine through the backyard gate, no doubt not pleased about being left at home this day of all days.

“Shall we?” he asked, and with a faint trace of his old smirk, sketched a courtier’s bow, and held out his arm for her.

She smiled- faint, flickering, fleeting, but all the more genuine for its brevity.

Already, the night’s phantoms passed into obscurity.

“Certainly, sir.”

The End.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: I don’t quite know what genre that was, or even if it was more than a pseudo-drabble with illusions of grandeur.

Even so, I quite like the soap, and the mention of Riza’s shampoo.

Reviews always appreciated.

Clover, July 2006.