For the Put Ed In A Dress challenge. Secret missions, entertaining disguises, pissed off Alchemists. .
Ed paused, pulling the bodice up, and poked at it suspiciously. “This,” he remarked very flatly, “is padded.”
Roy muses about his personnel management techniques.
It entertained Roy to no end that he could stop one of Edward’s tempers simply by thanking him.
Une and Hawkeye unwind after long days at work.
This, after all, was what the Second’s Club was for—so that the people who actually kept affairs running could vent before they want completely around the bend and left their frequently megalomaniac commanders to their own devices.
Ed’s lessons turn to manipulation.
This was the easy part. Edward knew a challenge when he saw one, no matter the context. Roy watched the first reflex straightening of his spine, saw his eyes widen as he took in the actual wording of Roy’s challenge, saw them narrow and watched Edward’s mouth curve up in a scimitar smile.
How Roy and Ed deal with the way Ever ended.
On the one hand, the door was merely closed, not locked, and Ed had no intention of sharing this part of his life with anyone else, thank you.
On the other hand… well at the moment the other hand was Roy’s, and it was tracing patterns up his back in a very tempting manner.
Roy wakes up in the hospital.
Roy woke far more slowly than usual, which would have been his first clue that something was wrong, had he needed a clue.
Roy recovers and Lisa keeps watch.
Hawkeye crossed one slippered foot over her knee and rubbed her toes. “I should have kept you at my apartment longer,” she said with some asperity. “At least I could walk across my guest room without tripping over anything.”
Lisa gives her old job the boot, much to the puzzlement of those around her.
When General Hakuro popped out of an office right in their path Lisa knew he’d been waiting for them, and tensed. There were a lot of unpleasant ways this meeting could go, and she could tell by the number of teeth in Hakuro’s smile that he had at least one of them in mind.
What does a career soldier do when he loses his career? And what do his friends do about him?
Roy’s past slid through his fingers into a box: a folded “portrait” of him, product of Elysia’s first finger paints; a box with his captain’s insignia—so that’s where it had gone; two letter openers, one of them an old knife of Hughes’.
Lisa gets some good advice from Gracia.
Lisa set down the teacups with a bit more force than necessary. “I’m not heartbroken over anything.”
Some reflections, while Hawkeye cleans her guns.
She liked her guns. Killing made her reluctant to eat for a day or two, but the guns themselves were clean and precise and definite at all times.
Havoc watches and worries a bit about his friends, as he moves them in.
Anyone with eyes knew Hawkeye’d had a thing for their superior officer since day one. Well, anyone with eyes who wasn’t Roy Mustang, but Jean had never been sure that wasn’t deliberate ignorance.
Lisa chooses a new direction to move in.
Roy would be in motion again, soon. He probably didn’t know it, yet, but she was sure of it.
Roy comes to some realizations and starts to move again.
Lisa had been a sweet, cheerful girl, when he’d met her. But she’d been seventeen at the time. He hadn’t been surprised that she’d become more solemn, when she showed up as his new Second Lieutenant two and a half years later. People changed as they grew up.
Lisa goes back to her roots.
A corner of her mouth twitched as she wondered what Roy would think if he knew that she’d learned half her officer skills from her family’s bank manager.
Roy stirs things up and gets a new job.
Clearly, Roy was heading for another superior who could spot him coming and going. This could be good or bad.
Team Mustang dives into politics.
Hawkeye sniffed. “It was bad enough, dealing with bureaucratic idiots as an officer,” she noted. “I’m not going to deal with them as a secretary.”
Lisa unveils her own new job.
She really couldn’t help a satisfied smile at the stunned realization spreading over Roy’s face. To be perfectly honest, she didn’t try all that hard.
Lisa and Roy reach an understanding.
“I’ve never met another woman who’s so beautiful when she isn’t trying.”
Lisa gets tired of waiting and coaxes Roy into bed.
“Lisa.” The whisper drew her attention from his hands to his face, and her lips parted. Roy was looking at her—at nothing but her—with a focus she’d only ever seen when he faced mortal danger. Except that, where his eyes were cold, then, they were warm now.
Havoc teases a happy Lisa.
Faint color painted her cheekbones and she gave him a mild glare. “Don’t you start too. Gracia is bad enough, giving me those doting looks every time I turn around.”
Their world has changed.
The first assassination attempt should probably not have come as a surprise. And, in a way, it didn’t.
