The Rumour

Disclaimer: I do not own, and never will, Fullmetal Alchemist or the characters within.

1: The Flower

It was a single flower and it was lying on the floor near the door to the office.

Breda saw it as he came down the corridor and stopped to pick it up. You didn't usually find flowers in military corridors. Had it fallen from a bouquet getting delivered or just dropped from the loose fingers of a casual picker? Breda shrugged and looked at it. It was red and he thought it was probably a rose. But he knew little about flowers and still winced when he remembered complimenting one lady on her daisies only to have been informed, in a loud and offended tone, that these were '…not so common as a daisy, you ignorant little man. They are gerberas.' At least he knew that what he had here was neither a daisy nor a gerbera.

He twirled the stem in his fingers and the petals barely moved. He sniffed and it did have a fragrance that was very pleasant. He walked into the office still contemplating the flower.

There was mayhem in the office. The Colonel and Edward were arguing and for once they both seemed to be on the same side. Breda stood just inside the door. Ahh, they were both trying to get out of attending the annual Recruitment Day. He smiled to himself. Yes, that would be about the only thing those two would agree on. For all the size of their egos, neither liked being on public display. And Recruitment Day would have them dragged from Division to Division and extolling the benefits and virtues to be had in serving the glorious State through its Military. Which neither of them believed in.

"That is what the orders say." Havoc kept saying. He was looking very pale and the cigarette had dropped from his lip a long time ago. Falman was nodding in agreement every time he spoke.

Fuery was watching them, his head moving from side to side. He wasn't going to get involved and he sat quietly. Al sat beside him and it always amazed Breda that something so large could appear so unnoticeable at times. Al had such a self-effacing manner, it was easy to overlook him.

Breda looked at the First Lieutenant and caught her rubbing her forehead with her fingers. He could almost see the tension in her as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her shoulders twitched. Hawkeye was obviously having a bad day and the loud voices were not helping.

Breda walked over to her and held out the flower. A spot of colour might be just what she needed he thought.

"For you, Hawkeye."

Hawkeye looked up and saw the flower and the kind eyes behind it. She reached out automatically and took it from him. She instinctively brought it to her nose and sniffed delicately and smiled at the scent.

"Thank you Breda. I've always liked roses."

Breda smiled and filed that away into his meager flower file. Now he knew what a rose looked like.

"You're welcome, Lieutenant."

They suddenly felt it and turned their heads to see everyone staring at them with various expressions of shock and surprise. Eyes were wide and mouths open. Breda frowned and turned to look at Hawkeye who was staring back at them.

"Why are you all staring and not working?" Hawkeye demanded as she reached for her gun. She frowned as they all blinked and then quickly began to look busy.

Ed dragged his brother away with a shouted, "I'm still not going, bastard!" The office could hear Al berating Ed for his language as they disappeared.

Fuery looked at the plans for the switchboard and put his head right down. Falman sat down and began to fill out requisition slips with a determined expression on his face.

Havoc frowned at Breda and stomped to his desk and propped a file up against the desk lamp and hid behind it. Judging from the muttered cursing a short time later, Havoc could no longer spell his own name.

Mustang contented himself with a loud retort of "If I have to be there, then so do you, shrimp" to the back of Ed's coat, before raising an eyebrow at Hawkeye and smirking as he settled into his chair. He waved his pen flamboyantly at her and then began signing the papers on his desk before she could shoot him.

Hawkeye and Breda exchanged a quick look and he shrugged. He didn't see what the problem had been. All he had done was give a flower to Hawkeye. He moved over to his desk and pulled the first of several operational stratagems that he had been working on lately. Breda loved strategy and logistics and within two minutes he was completely oblivious to everything around him.

Hawkeye looked around the now quiet office with a slightly pensive expression on her face. She wasn't stupid, she knew what they had seen and what they had thought. How they could have made that leap was something she was never going to find out. Just because Breda had given her a flower, even if it had been a rose…a single red rose. He hadn't meant anything by it. She had seen nothing on his face other than a slight touch of concern.

She settled back at her desk and rubbed her forehead again. She hoped the headache would fade soon. Her eyes fell on the rose and she smiled slightly. It was always nice to receive flowers she thought, even when there was no reason for them. She shrugged and began to put the incident from her mind. Crazier things had happened in this office before and she was fairly certain it would see even stranger things in the future.

A sergeant overheard Ed and Al arguing over whether flowers or chocolates were better to give and that 'surely he should have given her more than one flower?' and before lunch it was all over Eastern Command that Colonel Mustang was tight-fisted and that his First Lieutenant should look elsewhere.

Author's Note: It's fluff and it attacked and I really don't know where it's going, although I have some idea on how I'd like it to finish.

But that could be just a rumour…

silken :)