Limited Usefulness

Disclaimer: The FMA universe does not belong to me. I simply enjoy playing with it!

A/N: This is a missing/extended scene from the first episode of Brotherhood, where it is implied that Roy caught a cold from fighting The Freezer. I wished they would have done more with that, so I did it for them, lol! Please enjoy and if you feel like it, let me know what you think. Thanks!

There was a time and a place for a downpour of water. In a field, for example, when there had been a drought and the farmers were in dire need of said water. Or on a warm day when one had nothing to do and no particular place to go and a shower on hot skin would be nice. Or even when the night was chilly and all work was completed and the only thing left to do was go home, change into warm sleepwear and either brew a hot pot of coffee or go right to bed, to read or to sleep. If Roy had been soaked clean through during any of those times, he would have only found it to be a mild inconvenience. However, being drenched, half frozen, AND made to feel incompetent (and by a subordinate, no less) all in the same HOUR was not something Roy Mustang was equipped to endure on a regular basis.

"Sir," Riza Hawkeye was tucking the case that held his spare gloves under the seat and starting the car. "We should probably get you into warm clothes. Actually, I think it would be best for all involved if you would simply return to the hotel, dry off and get some rest. They'd understand I'm sure. I could explain the situation at Head Quarters and…"

"No." Mustang was putting his dry pair of gloves in his pocket and searching a vain for something to dry off on in the back seat. "I want to get this McDougal unpleasantness behind us as soon as I possibly can." A shiver ran up his spine and he fought the urge to wrap his arms around himself. Instead he sat up straighter and looked at Riza in the rear view. "Take me back to HQ and go get some rest yourself, if you want. This is going to be one long, boring night of nothing but paperwork." His voice was low and resigned, but there was a hint of something akin to annoyance in the tone as well.

"You know I won't do that Sir. I need to be readily at hand."

"Suit yourself, although I fail to see why I would need a body guard while I'm doing paperwork at the head quarters for the whole military. But I suppose I'm not going to…" Roy cut himself off by smothering a sneeze in his now ungloved hands.

Riza looked in the mirror and raised an eyebrow. "Are you feeling alright? Perhaps that little skirmish between you and the Freezing Alchemist gave you a cold."

"Yes, people sneeze. Fullmetal is probably bitching about me again." He looked out the window and sighed, not really looking forward to the long night ahead of him, but also not wanting to admit defeat, give in to his tired body and prove to Riza that she had been right. He had been completely useless that whole night. "I don't have a cold." He muttered under his breath.

"Yes Sir, perhaps your right. However, stranger things have happened." Hawkeye pulled the car into the empty lot, finding a parking space close to the back of the building.

She opened the door and stiffened as Roy climbed out of the car. "At ease Lieutenant, I'm not going to require you to stand on formality when we aren't even required to be here at this hour."

Riza relaxed and followed him, glowering at the back of his head. *So why are we here? You should be at home trying to shake you not-cold before it turns into not-pneumonia.*

Mustang walked passed the front desk and flashed his authorization at the guard on duty before heading for the very spacious office that was his for his stay in Central. He unlocked the door and sat down at the desk, resting his chin on his fists. "Hawkeye, see if you can find me some fresh paper, and a towel if you can. I feel the water running down my collar still."

Riza tilted her head slightly and closed her eyes. "Yes Sir. I'll return shortly." She turned smartly on her heel, squashing a surge of annoyance. "It's not my place, it's not my place…" Her teeth were set shut firmly and she only barely muttered the words, but she was not exactly pleased with her stubborn commanding officer.

Back in the office, Hawkeye's words still ate at him. *"You're completely useless in water, Sir"* "She didn't even have the courtesy to say my POWERS were useless. That's no way to talk to your C.O. anyway. It's disrespectful." He would never think about voicing these concerns to Riza, knowing that she would simply shrug and say something to the effect of "I'm sorry Sir, but sometimes being your body guard means saving you from yourself. Would you rather I lie and allow you to get yourself killed because of misplaced pride?" Yes, Roy decided in dismay, that would be exactly what she would say. And she would have a point, too. "She STILL could have worded it differently…" He groused, then sneezed into a balled fist.

"Sir?" Hawkeye chose that moment to push open the door and look at him with mildly accusing eyes. "Is Edward Elric still talking about you?" She set down a cup of hot coffee, a stack of fresh white paper and a towel on his desk. "I didn't think he had that much interest in what you were doing."

"I know what you think but I don't have a cold. That's ridiculous. How in the world would I have gotten one so quickly?"

The urge to smile almost won out against professionalism, but Riza, in the end, was professional to a fault. "Well, I very well could be wrong, you know more about alchemy than I do, after all." She kept her face carefully neutral. "However, I'm assuming that the law of equivalent exchange which allows you to tolerate heat more than the average person would demand in exchange that you be more susceptible to cold." It was just a theory, however Riza had seen signs in the past that the stoic colonel felt the chill a bit more keenly than most people. Signs that she would never point out and that he would never admit to. Such as keeping his heavy military issued overcoat draped around his shoulders when no one else seemed to bat an eyelash at the slight chill in the air, or the fact that he seemed to keep his hands in his pockets more than most people. However, these personality quirks alone were not enough to either confirm or deny Hawkeye's suspicions.

Roy shook his head. "I seriously doubt that. It still wouldn't explain how I would have caught cold so quickly if I have caught cold, which I haven't." He sneezed into his fist again, cursing inwardly.

Riza sighed in her most resigned way and took her place behind him. She wasn't about to point out that he'd been seeming just a bit out of sorts for a little while now. He was more than likely feeling the climate changes between Central and East City, but after tonight it didn't surprise her that he seemed to be coming down with something.

As the night progressed Roy had gone from periodically sneezing or clearing his throat with a bit more vigor than normal to sniffling quite a bit, the throat clearing had become an irritated cough, and he would sneeze every few minutes or so. When she was unable to contain her annoyance, Hawkeye spoke up. "Sir, do you happen to have a fresh handkerchief on you?"

"It's soaked." Came the clipped answer, followed by another, more pointed sniffle.

"Would you care to use mine for the time being?" She was already reaching into her pocket for the dry square of stiff white fabric, the question being strictly a formality. Tossing it on the desk, Hawkeye raised an eyebrow. "I haven't used it since I washed it last."

Roy shrugged and picked it up, blowing his nose. "Thanks." He had to admit, it felt better than constantly sniffling. A shiver ran down his spine as his clothes had gone from drenched to clammy during the hours between the first fight with McDougal and sitting in his office. "Hawkeye?"

"Sir?"

"Go back to the hotel and bring me a fresh uniform, will you? I can't have the Fuhrer seeing me in a uniform that is wrinkled from water should he choose to stop by."

"Yes Sir." Hawkeye turned on her heel, raising an eyebrow as she looked back to see Roy working on yet another sheet of paper. The report he was writing on the happenings of the night was coming along quite well. "Of course, the one time he SHOULD be slacking off…" Hawkeye muttered to herself, shaking her head as she closed the door.

After finding a fresh uniform and zipping it up in a garment bag, Hawkeye returned to Head Quarters. The streets were closed for clean up, with the exception of authorized vehicles so her round trip was about half the time she had been expecting. Much to her surprise, the office was empty when she returned. She frowned, her hand instinctively going for her gun. "Sir? Colonel Mustang?" She tugged her pistol out of the holster and went to search for her commanding officer.

The door swung open and she pointed the gun to the intruder. Riza wasn't sure if McDougal had any accomplices hidden away, but if anyone had followed them, she had left her sick boss alone, without protection and very vulnerable. If anything were to happen to him…

"Hawkeye?" Roy was drying his hair off with a towel and wearing a set of common blue training fatigues from the shower room. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Sir! You weren't here. I thought…" She put her gun away and sighed.

Mustang's face went from alarmed to almost gentle and he softened his voice just a bit. "Relax. Everything's alright, I wasn't expecting you back so soon. It makes sense, with the road blocks and seeing what time it is, I suppose. I just went to take a shower. I felt sort of chilled still." He turned away and sneezed into his fist. "Excuse me." He stalked back to the desk and picked up some of the papers, writing down his report again. After a few minutes, he sighed and set down his pen, meeting his subordinate's steady gaze. "Hawkeye, it's been a hell of a long night. Would you go get me some more coffee and yourself some tea, or whatever it is you drink to stay so focused, please? I have a feeling I'm not going to hear the end of this any time soon." He rubbed his heavy eyes, sniffling softly.

"Yes Sir. Don't go anywhere, alright."

Taking her meaning to heart, Roy met her eyes, the expression in them very serious. "I'll be here when you get back." With that promise Roy turned back to his work, etching down everything that happened, including, much to his chagrin, Hawkeye's firm reminder as they drove in the car, searching for McDougal, that he was useless under watery circumstances. *"It's not just rain that makes you useless, Sir."* Was her gentle yet pointed exact phrasing. USELESS! He hated that word more than an other word in the who dictionary. She had, of course, given him his gloves when he asked for a dry pair, and hung back as he settled the score with the Freezing Alchemist himself (or at least had another go at him…) but her words were always churning in the back of his mind. *Useless, useless…* His very headache seemed to throb out those words more articulately than Hawkeye had, and THAT was saying something.

"Sir?" Hawkeye's bland, patient expression didn't change as she held out the cup of coffee to him. "If you're tired I'm sure you could stay in the barracks tonight, or for the rest of the morning, I should say. It's four am now. With the clean up crew out, they should be relatively empty. You should be able to get a few hours' rest, at any rate."

"Doe, I'b fide." He fumbled for the handkerchief and blew his nose forcefully. "Sorry, I'm fine. Thank you, Lieutenant." He took the coffee and inhaled the steam, closing his eyes.

"I only suggested that because I was standing there for almost a full minute before you noticed me. You seem rather sleepy."

"Sleepy? My second least favorite word in the world…"

"Excuse me Sir?" Riza looked at him, understandably confused.

"Never mind, just something I was thinking about earlier. If I could ask one more thing of you for now, Hawkeye?"

"Anything you need."

"Could you find some more handkerchiefs for me, please? I don't see this one lasting the night."

"Yes Sir." She folded her arms behind her back and turned to leave once again. If it had occurred to her to wonder why Roy didn't make a list of all he would need and send her just once, she didn't say anything, even to herself.

Handkerchiefs, as well as anything with the exception of hot coffee from the ever full pot in the common room, were hard to find at this hour. Riza finally ended up swallowing her pride and heading to the front desk, where it was being watched by a young, exceptionally bored looking private. A wave of irritation washed over Hawkeye when the young man (well, boy, really) didn't even bother looking up when she approached the desk. "Private, was there some holiday that I was not made aware of?"

The boy sat up, looking very startled. "Oh, Lieutenant, Sir. Er, Ma'am." He jerked himself into a straight position and saluted her.

"At ease." Her eyes were cold and hard as she stared him down, wondering if she should bother with writing him up or not. She finally decided not to worry about it, as she had more pressing matters at hand. "I need any clean handkerchiefs you have, Private. If you would be so kind."

"Yes Ma'am!" He left the desk and came back with two. "Sorry, this was all I had. Anything else?"

"You do realize that failing at a look out position is a very serious offence, do you not?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"See to it that it does not happen again." Taking the fabric squares from him, Riza turned on her heel sharply, heading back to the office at a brisk pace. "Sir, I'm sorry, I could only find two."

She hung back as Roy sneezed into his hand, but he waved her in. "Thadk…" He sneezed twice more and blew his nose into the tired looking handkerchief that Riza was certain she didn't want back. "Thank you, Hawkeye. I'll figure something out later."