Title: Ten Reasons Why It Won't Work (Plus One Reason That It Will)
Summary: In which Roy tries to convince himself that having a relationship with his first lieutenant is a mistake and a danger to his life, manhood and pretty much his everything else.

A/N: Haha. This is longer than the first one I wrote and I hope I did a better job. :) Anyhow, I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes (I reread this myself to try and fix the obvious ones but I'm not sure if I got everything..) and for any OOC tendencies. So to keep this short, thank you and I hope you guys enjoy this! :D Even if I say this, will guys do it? Comments/Reviews are highly appreciated and loved! :)

Edit: I made some changes. Pretty minor, actually. Umm... FF won't lemme make double spacings in between each reason so... yeah. It messes up the formatting. ;_; Thank you for your consideration, guys!

Why It Won't Work:

1. The arguments.

He's willing to bet his beloved ignition gloves that in that relationship, he will lose every single tiny argument they might engage in because Riza is that good and she has that gun of hers that's always by her side to make sure he will see things her way.

"Colonel,"

"Yes, lieutenant?" Roy says, turning around to face his subordinate. He sees Hawkeye hold up a sheet of paper with the words 'Ducking Zit' written over General Hakuro's name on it and a proposition for a change of the army's standard uniform. Particularly the women's uniform. Roy turns livid and quickly freezes in his seat, looking very much like a cornered dog.

"I can explain-" starts Roy when a quick look from Riza stops him from continuing any further.

"Colonel, official military documents aren't scratch paper, am I correct?" says Riza placing the vandalized report on top of the sleek, shiny desk. "Well, that depends-"

"Then kindly re-write this again, sir."

"But-" Roy begins to protest only to be interrupted by an all too familiar click and the sight of gleaming, well polished gun pointed at his handsome face.

Then on the second thought, as he takes out a new piece of paper to write on, Roy takes back his bet and decides to gamble his paycheck for that month, which is a hefty sum, upon realizing that he might need his precious gloves instead.

2. The priorities of one's life. (In between you two is a sea of papers and bullets.)

Maybe it's just him but he's confident enough that practically everyone else has the same thoughts as him- Riza Hawkeye's priorities in life only includes her work and babysitting the many grown children known as 'Roy Mustang and his band of loyal puppies'.

"Colonel, May I ask what you are doing?" she asks in a flat tone.

"Huh?" Roy turns his head and looks at Riza, stopping in the middle of wiping the dusty window behind his desk. He steps down from the ledge and wipes his dirty hands onto his pants and grins. "You mean this? I was cleaning the window because it was so dusty and dirty and, and…"

"I can see that but what about that, sir?" says Riza pointing at something on top of Roy's desk. Roy tries to avoid looking at the object(s) in question that Riza is pointing at. "Whatever do you mean lieutenant?"

"I mean your work, sir. Your paperwork to be precise."

Roy flinches and turns his gaze at the offending pile of documents. "But-"

A bullet whizzes past by his ear and straight through the gleaming window behind him. In front of him, there's a gun with smoke coming out of it. "Sir, your paperwork."

Roy doesn't take his eyes off her as he slowly sits on his chair and takes a pen and begins signing the reports. He can feel her gaze on him. This isn't what he exactly has in mind when he wished that she had only eyes for him.

3. Jealousy is as common as air each day.

Roy contemplates that with a beautiful woman like Riza, regardless of how strong and scary she may seem to be, he'd have a hard time resisting the urge to snap-'n-char all those other idiots who'd want the blonde for themselves. The lieutenant of course, is a very attractive lady so it's only natural that she would have her share of stubborn ass suitors like every other beautiful woman out there.

It's just too much time, work and effort, he tells himself.

Roy turns around the corner just in time to see two of his subordinates along the hallways. He's about to call after them when Havoc get ahead of him and calls out to Riza.

"Hey Hawkeye,"

"Yes, Havoc?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me which of these two is a better model? Y'see, I'm planning to get one of 'em for my pop since his birthday is this weekend and I couldn't decide…"

"Oh… I see. Well, I think that…"

This thought seems to vanish when he sees the way Havoc is talking to her casually and the urge to offer the second lieutenant to light up his cigarette for him and more crosses his mind.

4. Love is a spiteful emotion that tends to complicate things up.

When they go on an undercover mission together at a high profile party, they pretend to be a young, recently married couple who are deeply in love with each other.

As she laughs softly at an offhand comment made by the target, he imagines her laughing instead at a joke he makes. When one of the other guests ask them how they met, Riza tells them the cover story that they came up with earlier back in HQ with the rest of the team. Soon Roy himself begins to believe their little 'fairytale' and feels this tiny fluttering, bliss-like feeling in his chest where his heart is supposed to be. He scolds and reminds himself that this is all just a silly mission that will soon be over and that everything will be as it should be when they complete the assignment as he and his 'wife' slowly sway to the music in the middle of the dance floor nearby their target.

By the end of the night and the party, mission's over and a job well done for everybody. As Roy drives back to his apartment, he feels a hollow sort of feeling somewhere in the pit of his stomach and a lingering thought that wishes he could turn back time and do the entire mission again.

(His mind consoles himself with the small glimmer of hope that he could always suggest going undercover again on the next assignment if it ever required such methods once more.)

5. His and her differences.

They were as similar as night and day, water and fire, sun and moon, hot and co-

Edward throws an empty glass at his direction and yells at him to shut the hell up already with his fucking nonsense to which Havoc corrects the younger alchemist that Roy's analogies weren't 'fucking nonsense' but were actually love-induced ramblings.

The rest of his men laugh in various drunken manners.

Then to add fuel to the already growing flames of irritation and embarrassment, Maes chortles his usual happy advice to his best friend, 'Get married already!'

Soon enough, the fire brigade arrives on the scene and every single one of the pub's patrons are standing outside the building as they watch the establishment slowly burn to the ground. When an investigation team interrogates him, Roy claims that the incident wasn't his fault and that the fire was most likely caused by gas leak. Everyone knows it's a lie but none of them denies it.

It helps having a huge ass paycheck to bribe all those people and still have enough to get the pub's owner to shut up about the loss of his source of income.

6. The rules.

There's something called the fraternization law that eliminates any chance of romance between them at all.

However,

Roy completely ignores the fact that nobody really follows said law. At least that's what it looks like whenever he sees how obvious Brosh is around Maria Ross.

(That being said, Roy also plans to take down the stupid rule once he became Fuhrer. The thought holds the second spot in his to do list when he took over the country.

Right after the uniform change, of course.)

7. Her guns.

But they protect you too, his mind points out. If they weren't busy aiming for his head, he rebuts.

8. Her dog.

No matter what happens, it's pretty obvious to Roy that he won't be number one in Riza's heart, he thinks as he watches Black Hayate trot (do dogs even trot?) over to his mistress for a pat on the head.

Roy frowns in jealousy as the expression on Riza's face softens when the dog gives her hand a quick lick. Lucky mutt. He then turns away and broods silently to himself.

Somehow. Roy wishes he was a dog. In a literal sense. But then, as soon as the thought enters his mind, he quickly shakes his head and slap himself.

What the hell?

Roy pales and decides to just forget about it. He makes a grab for his planner and tries to distract himself from such things but not before one last idea comes into his mind.

Wasn't he a dog of the military?

9. They grew up together.

"Actually, there's nothing wrong with that..." says Havoc looking like he was bored out of his mind. Roy smacks him behind his head. He glares at the blonde man who begins to rub the aching spot at the back of his head.

"You don't get it, do you?"

"No. Not really," Havoc says with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

"We practically grew up together! Dating her would be like, like dating my cousin!" exclaims Roy before taking a swig of his drink.

"A cousin, hmm?"

"Exactly!"

Havoc looks at the half-full glass of scotch in his hands thoughtfully before turning his attention to his friend.

"Well... You know, it's not like dating your cousin is wrong," begins Havoc sounding as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Roy is too shocked to say anything in return so Havoc takes this as a sign to continue.

"I mean, you can date your cousin but not your sister so... That solves your problem then!"

At this point, all Roy wants to do is drown his sorrows in alcohol and wonders why he even bothers to talking to the other man about things like these.

10. Military life is dangerous.

Nothing scares Roy more than his memories of the war in Ishbal. It teaches him just how fragile everyone, even walking weapons of mass destruction like him, really is. After that, he promises to no one in particular that he'd make sure to prevent anything like that massacre from happening again. Coincidentally the very next day after he makes that promise is the day he sets his eyes on becoming Fuhrer.

After Hughes' death, Roy wants nothing more than to kill the bastard who murdered his best friend. But then, when he sees Riza standing over her desk, fixing piles of papers, all he wants instead is to ask her to leave the army.

Roy doesn't know what he would do if she ever got killed.

So when he saw Envy, that asshole of a palm tree, strangling her, something inside him that snapped already snaps again. If he wasn't so occupied with causing the death of a homunculus, Roy would have fired Riza on the spot and hoped that she wouldn't shoot him for his stupidity.

After all, if he died, who was going to make sure she was okay?

(Then the loud voices of Havoc and the rest of his men standing outside in the hallway pulls Roy out from his memories, somehow managing to remind him that he wasn't the only who cared about his trigger-happy subordinate. He twitches in annoyance and begins coming up with something hard for them to do.)

Why It Will Work:

It's already been decided by God and the Universe. (Even they themselves have already come to the same decision but they just don't know it yet.)

He knows, she knows, God knows, the whole universe knows and practically every person who sees them can tell that they are meant for each other.

Hell, Edward says as he helps Alphonse stand up, that's why that messed up old codger of a doctor-scientist-madman whatever used Riza as a bargaining chip for Roy to commit human alchemy. Everyone else agrees and hopes that they should just get together already for God's sake, if not theirs.

So when Roy regains his sight back and fixes all the loose odds and ends, he works up the courage to confess his feelings for her one fateful day in the middle of a very crowded cafeteria. He walks up to Riza's table and clears his throat as loudly as he could. Riza looks up from her meal and gives Roy a curious look.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asks, putting down her fork, giving him her full attention now.

"Lieute- wait! Hawk- uhh.. I meant, Riza! Riza, that's right! Eh-hehe..."

By the time he gets her first name right, his mind is beginning to regret his decision as his face slowly turns bright red. "Sir, are you alright?" asks Riza, hers brows furrowing together. Not that they haven't noticed already but entire room is silent now, watching the two.

"W-well.. Where to begin.. Hmm.." Roy begins as he starts to fiddle with the hem of his jacket nervously. "I- I'd just l-like you to kn-know that.. That.."

At this point, a loud sigh is heard from somewhere in the room then followed by the sound of a head hitting the metal table resounds throughout the cafeteria. Roy resists the urge to just walk away from all this but a tiny voice at the back of his mind whispers that if he runs away now, he will probably never be able to work up the courage to tell Riza that he loves her ever again.

"You see-"

"Dammit! Get on with it already, you bastard!"

"Shut up, shrimp!"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A TINY CRUSTACEAN SEAFOO-"

"Sorry, Mr. Mustang!" apologizes Alphonse as he covers his brother's mouth with one hand all the whilst holding the older blonde with another. Roy nods in understanding and feels the tension slip away a little. He takes a deep breath before looking straight into Riza's eyes as he takes her hands into his. Riza looks mildly surprised but hides it and waits for Roy to continue.

"Riza... I-I loveyou!"

Roy closes his eyes and stops breathing until he hears Riza speak up. "Excuse me?" says Riza blinking. Roy opens his eyes and stares at the woman in front of him. "Could you please repeat your statement... sir?" Riza requests as her cheeks turn a bit red. Roy wonders if he could deny what he just said and brush it all of but then he sees the look in Riza's eyes, telling him that maybe... Maybe he wasn't the only who felt this way. Maybe it was both of them, Roy hopes praying to a god or whatever heavenly being was present to listen to his pleas.

Making sure he wasn't going to stutter or fumble through his words anymore, Roy squeezes Riza's hands in his for a little confidence booster and then...

"Riza Hawkeye, I love you."

This time it comes out loud and clear. The words echoing through the room and everyone still and silent, waiting for Riza's reaction.

Moments pass by when the sound of a chair clattering onto the ground breaks the silence and the sight of the blonde haired woman wrapping her arm around the flame alchemist sends everyone into a state of cheers and laughter.

"I love you too.." Riza whispers into Roy's ear as she hugs him tighter. Roy is stunned for a moment and then he breaks out into a huge smile and wraps his arms around her too. He pulls back for a second and gazes at Riza's face before closing the space between them, kissing her in front of the entire Amestrian army.

(The crowd erupts into a round of applause, some wolf-whistling.)

Needless to say, it works.

Omake.

Later that afternoon, Havoc goes home with his pockets filled with wads and wads of cash. He's never felt so rich in his entire life before. As Havoc counts the amount of money he's made from an 'investment' in predicting the outcome of Roy and Riza's relationship, he realizes that, apart from them, they weren't the only ones who've hit the jackpot; in a sense.

He promises to himself that the day after tomorrow, he will remember to thank two of his lovely colleagues who made it all possible for him to have enough cash to buy a new apartment by treating them to a five-star full course meal.

That is, of course, assuming Havoc still has enough left after he goes out on a date with Armstrong's sister tomorrow night. The older one, not the younger one.