Hidden in the Shadows

Chapter one

Pain was an inevitable piece of life, was it not? It was one of the prices. The constant groaning and aching. The sharp and dull. It all hurt. It was all pain. It was inescapable.

There were so many kinds of pain. Physical pains had almost no limits. Mental pain was far different. It was uncontrollable. Other pain could be controlled with numbing medications. But some pain was impossible to ignore. Grief is among those.

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Roy Mustang was a procrastinator. That was a well known fact around the office. It was something that he had unintentionally been labeled as. So, now, he sat there with a ticked First Lieutenant Hawkeye staring him down while he filled out his paperwork. Paperwork that would, with no doubt, be the death of him. That is, if his death didn't come from Riza's own gun.

"Sir, I have seen you write faster than that," Hawkeye prodded in her usual "down to business" way.

"Of course, but that was when I was writing to pretty girls." Hawkeye's gun was pulled from its holster and emptied in record time. The bullets met with old scars in the wood of Mustang's desk. Also compliments of his First Lieutenant.

The whole crew jumped. One would think after so long they would learn not to jump, but they must have jumped because they never knew when, if ever, Hawkeye would finally just snap and shoot the annoying, procrastinating womanizer. The Colonel jumped because of how close the bullets were to his own person. Who wouldn't jump if their very life was at risk?

"Get to work, Sir."

There was nothing to be said. The Colonel did his work, and he did it faster. Soon the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes to hours. The end of the work day rolled around and the paperwork on Roy's desk was still not finished.

Hawkeye didn't make any move to leave the office, but the others were all gathering their own belongings and "cleaning" their desks. The sound of farewells filled the air as the occupants filed out. Soon the office was completely silent, all except for the scratching of Roy's pen and the clock ticking away on the wall. It was about three pages through that Roy looked up to see Hawkeye sitting there reading a book. The flip of a page, and Roy went back to work.

Again, the time inched on. Roy felt the need to say something to his First Lieutenant. What he was supposed to say was lost to him, though. He went back to writing. Taking a glance at the clock every few minutes, genuinely annoyed at the fact that time seemed to be crawling at a snail's pace.

"Lieutenant, head home while you still can sleep tonight." Roy was actually surprised he had said that. He had said that, right?

"With all due respect, Sir, I don't trust you not to run for it as soon as I leave."

"Hawkeye, I am insulted that you would think I would do that." Roy honestly would run if he wouldn't have to do all the work the next day. Because he would have the work the next day, he didn't feel like running out. "Also, I know very well that this paperwork isn't going anywhere. There is no reason for you not to get any sleep. I mean, who will keep me in check tomorrow if you are exhausted?" Roy actually didn't know if Hawkeye needed sleep at all. She seemed to always be like a machine running on command. He knew that wasn't actually all that accurate. Riza showed emotion, kind of, where machines couldn't.

He was waiting for the inevitable "no" that was surely coming his way. "Keep to your work, Sir. I'll see you tomorrow."

What? She was going?