A/N: You know how I was going to update again in December? Yeah, funny story about that...

It goes like this: I forgot about finals. Yeah, go back and read that again. I forgot about finals and how updating just wasn't gonna happen. And then...then I hit ye old writer's block, my old friend. But it's here now, right? (Please say right...)

And everyone say thanks to Annakratos for beta-ing! (Love ya, babe!)

Summery: She would wait for Roy for as long as he needed, but that didn't mean Riza couldn't do something in the meantime… Riza Hawkeye turns thirty. Horror ensues.

—Just before the shooting—

In a crowded office across the compound, the Elrics were having problems of their own.

Ed, after spending nearly forty-five minutes in line to turn in his finally completed paperwork—which had been daringly nabbed from its resting place in Hawkeye infested territory, was experiencing some problems.

"What do you mean you won't take it?" The teen prodigy demanded, expression trapped at some terrible midpoint between horror and rage. Behind him, Alphonse fretted quietly.

The secretary manning the window—and boy was she regretting taking this shift now—quietly decided she was inordinately glad for the bulletproof glass that separated them, though she met his half-crazed eyes with a commendably straight face. "I'm sorry, sir," She repeated for the fourth time in as many minutes, "but those forms have to be filed with your CO in triplicate before I can accept a signed copy."

Ed met the woman's eyes as though she had told him to march himself out to the gallows. He tried to make her understand, "But that's the Bastard."

"Major Elric," the woman sighed, reaching up to rub her aching temple, "Colonel Mustang is not that bad—"

"I don't care about him," the young man yelped, "I mean Hawkeye will be there!"

The woman pulled back in surprise, then narrowed her eyes at the teen. First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye was a shining example of efficiency and devotion to duty, and something of a role model to many of the younger women on base. "What did you do to get First Lieutenant Hawkeye angry with you?" she demanded suspiciously.

"Nothing!" Ed cried, hands gripping his head in frustrated horror. "She's just snapped!"

"Really," the woman said flatly.

"Yes!" Ed yelped. "I can't even believe it. She tried to—"

"Major," the woman cut in angrily, "you should be ashamed of yourself for spreading rumors like that about the Lieutenant." With that, the blinds behind the glass separating the Elrics from the woman closed with a snap. A second later the Open sign was flipped to Closed.

The brothers stared at the space where the office worker used to be for a long moment.

Ed slowly lowered his hands from his hair before letting his shoulders sag. "Why won't anyone believe me?"

Al shook his head. "Brother," he said, clapping the older boy on the shoulder, "Be serious. Would you believe you?"

—After the shooting—

Riza, deeply lost in her own thoughts, bit her lip as she dodged around people automatically on her way back to the office. The Elrics had been unusually quiet for the last few hours. She hadn't heard even one explosion since the oddly placed obstacle course earlier that day. Although...there did seem to be something a little off around headquarters—

Thump. Thunk. Thump. Thunk.

"Code Red," the loudspeakers blared in a soothing female voice, "I repeat, Code Red. We are under attack. All personnel report to—"

Pelting down the hallway at the point of his squad's attack formation, a Sergeant demanded, "Where the hell is the heavy artillery?"

Thump. Thunk. Thump. Thunk.

Riza pointed absently in the proper direction to the man's inquiry before shrugged the feeling off. It couldn't be that important.

But when Riza finally made her way through the unusually crowded halls and pushed her way through the office door, she was hit by the feeling that she had missed something. Brow furrowed in confusion and growing annoyance, she studied the haphazard stacks of discarded paperwork on the floor, the rushed fortifications of overturned desks and tables, the roughly boarded up window through which only the barest streaks of sunlight made their way through.

And the three guns and one pair of gloved hands—posed to snap—pointed in her direction.

Riza and the men stared at each other for a long, awkward minute before the first lieutenant sighed and shook her head. "I can't leave you boys alone for twenty minutes at a stretch, can I?"

"Hey!" Breda protested, "That's unfair. We can hold down the fort just fine."

Riza slanted him a look, one eyebrow raised.

Breda opened his mouth, then closed it and sheepishly lowered his gun.

TBC.

A/N: Hey guys, I've noticed this story hasn't really been getting a lot of attention. I have a few other stories I'm working on (Rurouni Kenshin, Rurouni Kenshin-Naruto crossover, FMA, FMA-HP crossover, Hetalia). Would you rather I switch gears for now and work on something new and update this irregularly, or should I keep on top of this one?