Chapter Text
Chapter One
“General, I have the latest reports from Fuhrer Grumman about the Central Clean-Up efforts,” Riza announced herself as she walked into the private office. It was little more than a converted storage space, but with more than half of Central Command destroyed it was the best they could do for Mustang on such short notice. His rank entitled him to a much better space but he’d refused to oust anyone from their own space until the restructure of the military was complete and even with almost all of the higher ups having been arrested, there just wasn’t any space to go around. As it was, the rest of the team had been sharing a cramped, barely used and barely usable conference room for the last two weeks since their return to duty.
“Thank you, Captain,” Brigadier General Mustang placed his pen down on the stack of paperwork he had been dutifully filling out. He flexed his fingers before reaching out and taking the stack of reports Riza held out for him over his desk.
Their fingers brushed as she handed off the paperwork, only a moment of skin to skin contact, lighting Riza’s skin on fire like she’d been electrocuted. Riza couldn’t help but flash back to the feeling of those hands reverently caressing her skin, of his lips under hers, and the way he had breathed her name against her neck like a prayer as they had moved together, or of his tear-wet lashes against her cheek as they held one another. Her face remained as stoic as ever, but her heart rate had begun to pick up. Glancing up and meeting his intense gaze did nothing to ease the heat prickling her skin.
There was a moment of silence Riza felt loath to disturb as she steadily met the General’s intense gaze with her own. After a moment she cleared her throat and they both averted their eyes, a blush coloring her General’s cheeks as he began to fiddle with his pen with his right hand and muss up his already messy hair with his left.
“You have a meeting with the other generals at 4 o’clock. Is there anything else you need, sir?” Riza’s tone was even and controlled, despite how utterly out of control she felt at the moment. When the General looked at her like that, with his intense focus solely on her, she felt less than naked. She crossed her arms behind her back and squeezed her hands tight into fists until her fingernails began to cut into her palms, not painful but not pleasant.
“No, Captain,” General Mustang said after a moment. The blush was still on his cheeks and he could no longer meet her eyes. “You can go.”
“I’ll be next door if you need anything,” Riza replied after a moment. She turned neatly on her heel but did not go straight back to the conference room. The building they were situated in was one of the ones that had been half destroyed by the conflict on the Promised Day. It had been weeks since then, but half the building was still rubble. Riza had to walk across a courtyard and down into a basement to go get to the women’s restroom near the secretarial pool, as the three closer ones were all either destroyed or had no running water.
Riza was alone in the bathroom and she quickly splashed water on her face. She used a paper towel to dry her face, then pulled a few out of the metal box to address the sweat pooling under her arms and beneath her breasts. Feeling a little more like herself, Riza stuffed the soiled paper towels into the trash and locked herself into a toilet stall. She sat directly on the toilet and put her head into her hands.
She just needed a few minutes to collect herself. To remind herself why they had drawn the lines they had drawn and remind herself why she had to enforce them. She loved the General, and she knew he loved her. It didn’t matter. Their goals mattered so much more than any feelings between them. There could be no relationship and no repeats. Cementing that thought in her mind, Riza stood and flushed the toilet, just in case anyone had come in. She washed her hands and made the ten minute walk back to the conference room.
The men immediately stopped talking as soon as Riza walked in. She ignored that and walked past file boxes stacked on the floor, around the conference table to her chair to resume her work. Conversation started up slowly as she got settled. Falman handed her a fresh cup of tea while Havoc and Breda resumed whatever conversation she’d interrupted them in. Riza worked diligently with one hand, the other holding a blank folder she was using a fan. Of course their new “office” didn’t have a fan, or a window, let alone air conditioning.
Riza found it harder and harder to focus on work between the conversation between the rest of the unit, the dull pounding of a headache threatening to form behind her eyes, and the unbearable heat. She could feel the beads of sweat forming at her hairline and the small of her back.
“Riza? Hey, Riza?”
Riza blinked and realized she had been completely zoned out for who knows how long. She glanced across the small table to see Havoc literally waving his hand in front of her face. She felt herself blush as she came to a second realization that he’d probably called her name a few times.
“Sorry, Jean, what were you saying?” Riza gave him an apologetic smile, putting down her folder fan and her pen to give him her full attention.
“I was just asking if you were alright. You look a little pale and it’s not like you to zone out like that…” Jean trailed off, glancing around the room at the others, who had all stopped working and weren’t even pretending not to listen.
“I’m fine,” Riza assured. “I guess I’m not 100% yet.”
Riza had only been out of the hospital for a little more than two weeks, and after the severe anemia from the blood loss the doctors had told her not to expect too much of herself.
“If you aren’t feeling well, maybe you should head home early today,” Fuery suggested.
Before Riza could respond with a vehement denial, Breda spoke up.
“Yeah, Hawkeye, you shouldn’t strain yourself this close to getting out of the hospital. You need to go home to get some rest.”
Riza shook her head and picked up her pen. “That’s really not necessary. Besides, we all have so much work left to get done today. And the General has that meeting with the Fuhrer today, he’ll need me there for that.”
“Why don’t we go let the chief know you aren’t feeling well and let him decide what to do?” Havoc suggested.
Riza knew exactly how that would go. They’d walk next door and she’d tell General Mustang she wasn’t feeling well, and he’d order her right back to the doctor with at least another week of mandatory leave. He had already tried to persuade her to take more time off to recover and it had taken a lot of arguing before he accepted that she was going to go back when he did.
Riza sighed.
“I’ll take over for you during the meeting,” Havoc said. “Go home and get some rest.”
“We will cover for you with Mustang,” Breda added.
If Riza had been feeling even a little more herself, she would have argued and probably won. As it was, she decided to take the path of least resistance. She gathered her things and let Havoc walk her out to the bus stop. They didn’t talk as they walked out, Havoc focusing on pushing himself in his wheelchair around the rubble that still littered the courtyards, Riza lost in her thoughts.
Havoc stayed with her until the bus came, bid her to get some rest, and promised to make something up so her General wouldn’t know why she’d left early.
***
Hayate was happy to see Riza when she got home, accustomed as he was to coming to work with her. There just wasn’t room for him in their current office and he had taken being left home alone for two weeks as a slight. At least her apartment was cooler than Central command. Riza opened every window and relished the cool breeze. She turned on the radio, and stripped out of her military uniform.
As Riza unhooked her bra, she felt relief flood her body. She hadn’t realized how sore she’d gotten. After not wearing a bra for her weeks in the hospital and then being so fatigued from the onslaught their return to work in the aftermath of the Promised Day had brought, she had forgotten how much relief and simple pleasure there could be in something like taking a bra off at the end of the day. She dressed in a pair of bike shorts and the button down dress shirt Roy had left at her apartment.
Riza spent the rest of the afternoon curled up on the couch with the radio playing in the background, nose deep in a reread of her favorite book. She hadn’t noticed drifting off to sleep until she heard the doorbell ring and Hayate’s single bark alerting Riza to a friend at the door.
The sun had long since set, making it well after dinnertime. She unlocked the door and pulled it open as far as the chain would allow. It was no surprise to find General Mustang at her door. Rebecca always called first, even if it was from the payphone at the corner to tell Riza she was five minutes away. Havoc couldn’t do the stairs yet, though his legs were getting stronger every day with his physical therapy routine, and no one else in her life had the habit of dropping by unplanned.
He didn’t say anything when she answered the door, just held up both hands, a bag of take-out in one hand and an empty flower vase in the other. Riza let him in and locked the door behind him.
“You didn’t have to come all this way, sir,” Riza said. She took the bag of take-out and the flower vase from him and set them down on the kitchen table. He knelt down on the floor to greet Hayate as Riza busied herself in the kitchen getting out plates and silverware.
“It was no trouble. I didn’t want you to have to cook if you aren’t feeling well.” The General wasn’t looking at her, but instead focused on playing tug of war with her dog. Riza set out two plates and glasses on the table, and started to unbox the take-out.
“They were supposed to come up with some other excuse,” Riza muttered under her breath.
“Oh, they tried,” the General replied, pushing himself to his feet. He leaned against the doorway, hands in his pockets. “Fuery’s a terrible liar, and I know you better than that.”
“I’m sure I’m fine, sir.” Riza put a pitcher of lemonade on the table and sat down to eat.
The General took the other chair. The first few times he’d come over with take-out he’d tried to insist on dropping it off, but now he just brought food for himself, knowing they would end up talking for hours anyway.
“I think it was just the heat and the fatigue getting to me. I’ll be back at work tomorrow.” Riza pushed the food around her plate, not really feeling hungry. It was her favorite dish from her favorite restaurant, and it was clear across the city in the opposite direction from the office. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to eat.
“You should let your doctor know,” The General had the bad habit of talking with his mouth full. He always had perfect manners around the military brass, or the public, or out on dates, real or with informants. But when it was just the two of them, he chewed with his mouth open, talked with his mouth full, and seemed to forget how to use a napkin. Riza was used to it.
“I won’t worry them over something like this,” Riza replied.
“You were seriously injured, Captain. You need to take care of yourself.” Mustang had stopped shoveling food into his mouth and was now watching as Riza played with her food, having only taken a couple bites.
“If I don’t feel better tomorrow, sir, I’ll call the doctor’s office.” Riza conceded.
They ate in companionable silence after that. Riza showered and fell into bed shortly after the General had left.
When Riza woke the next morning, a dull ache in her abdomen and bloodstains on her sheets she knew exactly why she’d been feeling so off the last couple days. She stripped her bed before leaving the apartment for work, relieved she wouldn’t end up back at the doctor’s office after all.