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’.
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.
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.”
Ross fields some odd questions from her new boss.
“Ross-kun,” he murmured, not seeming to notice. “What do women really want?”
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.
Their world has changed.
The first assassination attempt should probably not have come as a surprise. And, in a way, it didn’t.
Al wakes up, restored. Not all the news is good, though.
He and Nii-san were going to have to come up with whole new equations to talk about what had happened to him and probably some new technical vocabulary too. The thought steadied him, and he smiled.
Roy really likes Ed’s metal hand.
Roy shifted against the bed as Ed’s metal fingers pressed deep into him.