Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.

A/N: First of all, I don't understand a thing about cars, so everything concerning them that I mentioned in this fic was completely made up, so sorry about my ignorance. Also, I tried very hard to keep everyone in character, but, again, sorry if it didn't turn out so great. Oh well.

EDIT 11/2016: Fixed some things I didn't like, including some of the grammar mistakes and typos. Finally.

"I can't believe this."

To say that when it rains it pours would have been ironically accurate in a case like this. As she stared at the white puff of smoke making its way out of the hood of the car, Hawkeye couldn't help but wonder how much worse the situation could get. As if losing control of the car and hitting a nearby tree wasn't bad enough, it had to be past midnight, raining like there was no tomorrow, and she had to be in the middle of a deserted road, a thousand miles from anywhere.

And, of course, she had to be completely alone... with him.

"Alright… what the hell just happened, Lieutenant?"

She sighed. "There's something wrong with the car, sir; it wouldn't turn properly. I apologize. I thought I had smelled something burning, but I chose to ignore it." In fact, she still was smelling a faint burning scent; but with all that smoke, she could easily take her guess at the source.

For just a second, she thought she saw a flash of… something cross his features when she said that last part, but it was gone so quickly she blamed it on her sleep-deprived brain.

"You don't have to apologize for anything. These things happen," Mustang said, not quite looking her in the eye. "But it does look like we're not leaving anytime soon, doesn't it?" He crossed his arms behind his head, leaning further back in the seat. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he looked glad.

"Not to worry, Colonel. I will go take a look and see if I can fix it", she informed him, stoically, as she opened the door and braced herself for the rain.

He sat up abruptly, suddenly looking alarmed. "No, wait!" She stopped dead in her tracks, startled, and turned to look at him, expecting him to continue. He, however, simply kept on gaping at her, not saying a word.

"…Well?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. This seemed to have brought him back to reality, as he snapped his mouth shut and straightened, trying and failing to appear casual.

"It's no use, I'm sure. After that crash, and in this weather, clearly there's nothing you could possibly do to fix it." He gestured to the smoke still coming out of the hood of the car.

"Colonel, that might be true, but I think we are a little out of options here. Unless you have a better idea–"

"I actually do," he interrupted her, with what looked like the ghost of a smirk on his lips, "We can just stay here inside the car until someone shows up to help us."

She blinked at him. "Colonel. That could take until morning to happen."

That ghost of a smirk seemed to have become a little more alive with this. "Yes. I know."

She blinked at him once again. Strange. The Colonel had been acting rather oddly ever since she told him they would need to ride by car to this city a little north to the headquarters, where he would be attending a meeting, since the train lines that led there were on repairs. The moment he learned this, he had this contemplative, almost mischievous look on his eyes, the one he always had when he was planning something. Since then, he kept acting strangely, spacing out all the time and appearing to be on edge for no discernible reason. And now this, acting as if being stuck in a car in the middle of the nowhere was the most normal thing in the world? Something was up with this man, and she feared she would soon find out what it was.

"Sir", she began, pinching the bridge of her nose. It was much too late for this crap. "Are you even listening to yourself? We are in an unknown place, with no back up, and the car is broken. Considering I have limited ammo and you are as good as dead in this rain", he gave her a rather dirty look at this, "we are completely vulnerable to whatever enemy decides to attack us. If we just sit here and wait until tomorrow, we might not even have a chance to see the sun rise. Do you understand my point?"

"Why do you have to keep saying I'm useless in the rain? Do you really need to be so–" Apparently not.

"Sir!"

"Alright, alright." He sighed, exasperated, and still looking rather annoyed. "Do as you please." He turned away from her and crossed his arms. Pouting.

She couldn't help but snort, incredulous, at this. Why was he acting so damn childishly? Well, no matter. He could pout as much as he wanted once they were safe, on time and at their proper destination. Shoving this whole situation on the back of her mind, Riza stepped out of the warmth of their car and made her way to the ruined hood, cringing at the very unlikely chance that she could fix it when she opened it and nearly choked to death with all the smoke.

"So? How does it look?" Came the curiously taunting question from the inside of the car. Riza didn't even bother replying it, she already had enough in her mind with the unfixable condition of the vehicle to bother with the stupidity of her commander. The car was trashed beyond repair, or at least any repair she could possibly do in the current situation. Apparently, the force of the collision to the tree was more than the car could handle. This discovery did wonders to her already terrible mood, crushing whatever hope she still had of getting out of this before sunrise.

"Come on, Hawkeye. It's obvious that there is nothing you can do", Mustang shouted from inside the car, "You're just getting yourself soaked and very probably sick. Just let it go and come back inside." Despite everything, she had to admit he was right. There really was nothing she could do. Still, something was bothering her. She was an excellent driver; she would never lose control of the car because of some damn rain. And, she had felt something wrong with the steering wheel. She had dismissed it as her being paranoid and paid it no mind; but, now, it was pretty obvious that had to mean something, given the current circumstances. As she inspected the mess of wires, she noticed that one of them was split. Actually, on a closer look, melted would be the better word.

She picked the abused wire as she pondered. That was really odd. There were no other malfunctions, even with the current state of the car, that could have caused such damage. And there was the matter of that burning smell she picked up on from the very first time she entered the car; though, back then, she had simply shrugged it off as her superior's fault…

"Lieutenant, just get in the damn car. That's an order."

Something snapped into place inside Riza's head and put her engines to work. She started to feel a sinking feeling in her stomach as all the pieces of the puzzle were put together and she could finally connect the dots. But, really, that couldn't be it. It just couldn't.

She casually made her way to the driver's seat, stepping in and closing the door with the blankest face she could muster.

"Took you long enough. Seriously, Hawkeye, you are just too stubborn. It would be very irresponsible of you to get sick because of something so trivial."

"Sir", she said, flatly, facing the front window, "you do realize we are stuck in this vehicle with no ammo, no food, and no means to contact anyone for god knows how long, yes?"

He paused for a moment, as if considering the nature of her question. "Yes, I do."

She nodded, her expression still completely blank. "You are aware that we are easy targets to whatever enemy decides to engage us and that our lives are in serious danger, yes?"

He frowned. "Yes, Lieutenant, I'm not stupid. But I really don't believe we are in any-"

"Sir, you do know that we not only could easily die here, but you are also very likely going to miss your meeting and be in serious trouble with your superiors afterwards, both situations risking everything we've been fighting for the past years, yes?" She interrupted him, now raising her voice ever so slightly.

At this, he hesitated, as if considering something. He eventually settled for squaring his shoulders and replying, firmly, "Yes."

She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and finally turned to look at him, her face still blank, but her gaze sharp, dangerous and accusing. "You do know all of that. And yet, you're not worried at all."

Mustang couldn't tell whether she was asking or stating, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. Even as he tried to maintain his stoic facade, Hawkeye could see the fear in his eyes as he swallowed and sweated, obviously trying to come up with a convincing defence. "Yes. Well... I mean, as I was saying, there really is no need to worry so m-"

"Do you know what's funny, sir?" she interrupted him yet again, her voice dripping with venom. "There was something wrong with the car, after all. You see, one of the wires responsible for the control of the steering wheel was torn." She waited for him to say something, her accusing gaze never leaving his eyes, making him shift uncomfortably.

"Re-really? What do you mean, torn…?" he stumbled on his words, trying his best to look surprised.

"I mean torn, as in melted. In half. But you see, that is really curious. There is no way that wire could have been burned like that by accident."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What? You think this whole accident was planned out by someone?"

"That is precisely what I think, sir."

He made a ridiculously poor attempt at a confused shrug. "So you think, what? That someone cut that wire to try and kill us?"

"At first, yes; I did. But not anymore. You see, this is a really unpredictable way of trying to kill someone. If the wire had been entirely cut right away, the steering wheel wouldn't have worked from the beginning and we would have noticed. So my guess is that the person only cut- I'm sorry, melted it halfway through, so it would tear up entirely as we drove. But there was no way of knowing for sure that it would tear before we arrived at our destination, or that that would kill us at all."

Roy stared at her for a moment, apparently stunned that she thought of all of that so fast. "...Maybe the person just wanted to get us stranded and then attack us."

She nodded, "Yes, could be. But don't you think they would have already showed up by now?"

His only answer was to blink stupidly at her. She sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Sir," she started, her tone tight with restrain, "tell me the truth. Please."

"…I don't know what you mean."

"Sir. Did you or did you not have anything to do with that?" She still kept her eyes closed and a deafening silenced followed for a few seconds. The tension was so huge she thought the whole car might explode. But, honestly, depending on his answer she wouldn't mind much if that happened. If her suspicions were right, if he had indeed caused this whole gods forsaken situation, she didn't know what she would do. A tiny thread of self control was the only thing keeping her from cocking her gun and blowing his brains away and she knew for sure that all it would take was his confirmation to make her completely lose it. Please don't tell me you did it, please don't tell me…

"…Yes."

…you did it.

That was it. She was going to kill him.

"I knew it!" She exploded, her calm composure finally gone as she turned to face him with nothing but righteous fury in her eyes. "God help me, I knew you were up to something from the beginning!" She was flushed, shaking with anger as she threw her hands up in exasperation. Mustang had seriously never seen her this pissed before. It was quite frightening.

"A-alright, calm down, Lieutenant!" He tried to regain his composure, using all authority he could muster.

"Don't", she snapped back to him, pointing a finger towards his direction, eyes huge with something very similar to blood lust. "Don't tell me to calm down. Sir." Her voice was dangerously low now, and it looked like she would love to put some bullets between his eyes at the moment. "Just tell me. Please, tell me why. Why did you do this!?"

He suddenly looked away, and if Riza didn't know better, she would have sworn she saw a hint of a blush on his cheeks. "I had my reasons."

She blinked at him.

"…You had your reasons. You made me crash the car, nearly got us killed, put us in a life threatening situation and risked everything we've been fighting for because you had your reasons?"

He didn't reply, just stared into space with a frown, looking embarrassed.

She couldn't believe it. What was wrong with him? Did he just lose his mind? She couldn't understand it! He had always been a little… odd, but she never thought he was capable of being so irresponsible, so childish! Just how could he do something this stupid? Why had he done it?

"Do you have any idea of what you've done? Any idea at all?" He didn't answer. "I dedicate my life to protecting yours. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He looked like he had something to say about this, but she didn't give him a chance to talk. "It probably doesn't, since you so carelessly decided to throw everything away just for the kicks of it. Everything I do for you, I do because I believe it's worth something. I do because I believe in you. So, what? Was I wrong to believe in that? Do you seriously take all of this this lightly?"

He whirled back at her, and though the embarassment was still clearly there, he also looked very angry. "Of course not!"

"Then why did you do that for?!" He frowned and looked away again, obviously not willing to let her know. She sighed, exasperated. "Have it your way." She opened the door, preparing to get out again.

"Wait, where are you going?" He asked, a hint of desperation in his voice, almost as if he was afraid she would abandon him in the middle of the nowhere. Just how old was he? Six?

"I'll try to find help."

"Then I'll come with you," he stated, already opening his door.

"No, you're not, sir. You'll stay here in the car and wait for me. We cannot afford to have you lose your only means of defending yourself by soaking those gloves and being useless again." He grumbled something about being useless under his breath, but she didn't have the patience to pay attention to it anymore. "So, please, please, stay in the car, keep those gloves dry and try not to do anything stupid. Again."

"Riza, look…" He started, apologetic, but was interrupted by her.

"No, Colonel," he flinched a little at the way she spat the honorific, "you look. I don't know what's gotten into you or why the hell you did that for, since you're obviously not interested in telling me. But, right now, I have far more important things to worry about than your whims. So I would deeply appreciate if you tried to stay focused and just did what I told you to. Sir." She tried to be as cold as she could, before slamming the door close and venturing away in the freezing rain, feeling a sickening chill over her body.

This day couldn't possibly get any worse. Truly. But of all things, what infuriated her the most was her Colonel's irresponsibility. It just didn't make any sense! No matter the reason, purposely crashing the car was too much, even for him. She couldn't even name all the feelings she felt at the moment. She was disgusted, irate, baffled, and even disappointed in her superior. This act of immaturity went against everything she ever believed he was, not to mention everything she fought for. Oh, but if he thought she was done with this discussion, he was so very wrong. She would give him an epic lecture when this was all over, not to mention double the paperwork he would be doing for a month.

"Riza, wait!"

Actually, make it a year.

She seriously couldn't believe her eyes when she saw her Colonel running towards her, explicitly ignoring what she had just told him to do. This was starting to get ridiculous. The first thing she would do when she got back to central would be taking him to the hospital to see if he hadn't hit his head somewhere and now had some kind of mental illness. At the moment, she couldn't find any better word to describe Roy Mustang other than demented.

"Colonel! For the love of God, what are you doing?! Is it so hard for you to do something as simple as-" She had been yelling at him with all the hatred she had accumulated over the day, lashing out madly and more than willing to stay the rest of this unholy night biting his head off. But she never got the chance to.

All of her anger, all of her frustration, all the insults she had been planning to say died at her lips the moment they connected with his. She never saw it coming. One moment he was running towards her, the other he had her scooped in his arms fervently kissing her. She was dumbstruck, and before she even had the proper chance to realize what was happening he had pulled away and was passionately whispering to her, their noses barely touching, "This is why. This is what I've been planning to do the whole day. I just needed a chance to catch you alone, away from everthing." He shrugged with a humorless chuckle, "Though it didn't work exactly as I had planned, I'll admit. But, see? It wasn't as bad as you thought, now was it?" He smiled, melting her not unlike he had that poor wire.

This, undoubtedly, was the most idiotic plan she had ever heard of. So, he nearly got them killed in order to kiss her. How brilliant. When she used her reason, this only made her want to shoot him more. But she just couldn't. Not in that position, so helplessly intoxicated by his warmth, his eyes, his breath, his annoyingly smug smirk. Right now, she was absolutely defenseless.

"You're such an idiot." Was the only thing with some dignity that she could whisper before grabbing him by the hair and pulling him into another kiss, ever more passionate than the one before, morphing all her wrath into love, completely letting go of everything else in the world.

After all, she could be mad at him some other time.

"…Oh. I think I locked us out of the car."

…Although there is no time like the present.

A/N: So, this was my attempt at humor. Was it too lame? Too out of character? Should I cut off my hands for writing this in the first place? Please, review and let me know!