Soldier Keep On Marching On

Broken Wings

Take these broken wings
And learn to fly again
And learn to live so free

**********

The team took to the halls of Central Command, discreetly asking anyone if they'd seen a suspicious figure creeping around a few nights ago. No one turned up anything aside from Falman who heard that the only person who passed by that night was Aiden. He said he learned it from a night guard just before he was let off. It never occurred to any of them to ask Aiden if she'd seen anything. They knew she stayed late often enough.

Riza found her sitting next to Jack in the cafeteria. Even from the lunch line, she could see something was bothering Aiden. She narrowed her eyes as she drew closer to the two. Aiden would smile at the jokes but she wasn't laughing and she barely talked. Riza sat across from Aiden.

"Good morning Aiden, Lieutenant Jack," she greeted warmly. At first she only ever called Jack his rank as a professional courtesy. Then it became a habit.

"Hey, Riza."

"Hello, Hawkeye." Jack waved and turned back to Aiden. "And then the guy was never heard from again. Crazy, huh?"

Aiden nodded in agreement. "Yeah, even I have to say that's weird. See you later." Jack gave a thumbs up and left, carrying his tray to the trash. "So what do you need, Riza? You rarely ever come down here for food." Aiden stabbed the eggs with her fork and stared as the utensil stayed upright. She poked it and it still didn't move. "Well this is obviously a new life form; I should either bring it to our scientists or incinerate it."

"Just let it evolve on its own," a cool deep voice answered behind her. She tensed and stared at her plate.

"Good morning, Colonel," Riza said, taking a bite of her bacon.

"Hey," Aiden said, looking over her shoulder.

There were no outward signs that Roy remembered what happened the other night. If he did he hadn't approached her about it. He sat down in the seat next to her.

"I know this may sound weird," he hedged, "but did you stay late four days ago?" So he did remember it. Aiden slowly nodded, prompting him to go on. "Did you see anyone suspicious? Someone running or probably fast walking?"

She shook her head. "No, it was just me and a stationary guard in the hallway. I didn't see anyone else after him."

Roy was looking for whoever was in his office that night and almost strangled to death. Which just so happened to be her. It didn't look like he found any evidence if he was asking her opinion. Unless he already knew and was testing Aiden's ability to lie to him.

No... that couldn't be it. Roy wasn't the type of person to confront a suspect without his entire unit, and if he did he was confident being by himself. There was never an in between. If that weren't enough they were in the mess hall, plenty of witnesses. Any one of them could tell the investigators what happened, if anything did.

A grin spread across her lips as the words came rolling off her tongue. "What for? Someone steal your favorite pair of gloves?" she teased.

Roy huffed and rolled his eyes. "As if. We can't all wear our things around our necks as you can," he lazily reached over and flicked her scarf up. Aiden winced and leaned away from him. Her response came across as annoyance and he shrugged. "Anyway, you didn't see anyone else?"

"No."

Roy nodded at her answer and left the table. She was quiet for a moment before picking up her tray and excusing herself. An apologetic look was sent to Riza as she left. Riza had been quiet during the conversation and stared at the door they'd left through.