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The worst thing about Riza Hawkeye being your best friend is that she has no sense of sympathy for romantic matters whatsoever, especially when it comes to the very real possibility that Rebecca will die, alone and unloved, surrounded by a small army of cats. Personally, Rebecca doesn’t think it’s asking for too much to get a shudder of sympathy at this point in the conversation, maybe an acknowledgement that clearly all the men here in Eastern don’t deserve her, or hell, even a supportive pat on the shoulder, but no, instead Riza raises an eyebrow at her and points out in that all-too-reasonable tone, “You hate cats, Rebecca.”
Which is true. But it’s the principle of the thing. When she says as much to Riza, Riza ignores her and goes back to sipping her drink. Which is just typical.
They’re at yet another retirement party tonight, this time for Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Forster. Officially the word is that he wants to spend more time with his grandchildren, but Rebecca’s heard from Grumman that Forster ran his mouth off to the higher-ups at Central about how he thought they mismanaged one of his operations and was subsequently strongly encouraged to consider retirement. It is a party at one of the nicer officers’ clubs in the city, though, and everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room, instead congratulating Forster heartily on forty years’ good service, so Rebecca isn’t inclined to complain.
At the moment Riza’s sitting next to her at the bar, but Rebecca knows how this works. In about fifteen minutes, Riza will slip off to rejoin her boys, maybe letting herself take the time to dance with one or two of them, maybe not, but either way, at the end of the night, Riza will be sitting with Mustang at one of the tables in the corner, doing that weird thing where they have long involved conversations about what Forster’s forced retirement means for their plans without ever once opening their mouths, probably solely through the medium of arching their eyebrows at each other or something.
So Rebecca decides it’s time for drastic action. “Ri-za!” she says, stretching out the vowels as long as possible so Riza knows she really means business. “Look, the least you could do is help out your favorite single friend and introduce her to someone nice. And manly. And rich!”
The corners of Riza’s eyes crinkle. “You’ve met all the eligible men I know, Rebecca. I hardly think you need an introduction by this point.”
This is also true, and a painful reminder of what incredibly depressing prospects Riza’s coworkers are.
Well, not that Mustang’s that bad. Actually, Mustang’s quite a bit of all right, but unfortunately pretty much every rule there is of Best Friendship makes him off-limits forever. Now Falman, for example, is much too wimpy. Also possibly married; Rebecca’s not absolutely sure on that point. Breda’s not bad, but something about him gives her the shivers. Even disregarding the fact that he works with Riza and is therefore definitely not as stupid as he pretends to be, Rebecca’s always had the gut feeling he can see right through her and not in a fun way, either.
And Fuery—God, when Riza mentioned she and Mustang were transferring cute little Sergeant Fuery over to their unit, Rebecca had sat her down for a serious talk and asked if their biological clocks were ticking already, since they’d apparently decided to take the plunge and adopt. Riza had just glared (she did that a lot, actually, around Rebecca) and had told her not to be ridiculous, that the Sergeant had plenty of experience and was a grown man besides; but then, not two months later, Rebecca had heard that Mustang was sponsoring some preteen Elric kid for State Alchemist, and had laughed and laughed. Riza had very pointedly refused to comment on the situation.
Which leaves Havoc, of course, but Rebecca is still confident she can do better than a ridiculous serial-monogamist ashtray who seems to have taken a dislike to her for the simple reason that she likes to hang around her best friend when they run into each other at the shooting range. (Well, that and the fact that mocking Havoc and everything he does has become something of a bad habit for her). Besides, he has more ex-girlfriends that she can count, and Riza might be willing to put up with that kind of crap when it came to her Colonel, but Rebecca is very definitely not. So there!
And maybe she’s said that last part out loud, because now Riza’s staring at her like Rebecca’s lost her mind.
“Becca,” Riza says carefully, “exactly how many of those Aeroguan Sunrises have you had?” Actually, the number only comes up to three—well, four if you count that Alchemist’s Brew she’d tried at first, but Rebecca didn’t, considering it hadn’t had enough alcohol in it to get a five-year-old drunk.
“I thought so. Come on, Second Lieutenant Catalina—“ Rebecca makes a face at Riza’s oh-so-subtle reminder of the infinitesimal difference in their ranks“—let’s get you home.”
Huh? Well, that’s unexpected. Usually Riza gets a whole bunch more scheming and plotting accomplished during a party. So Rebecca says, “Don’t you have some more uh, you-know-what—“ she substitutes, when she recalls that scheming and plotting is one of those extracurricular activities Riza prefers to keep discreet “—to do?”
Riza gives her an appalled look, by which Rebecca concludes that either you-know-what sounds inappropriately suggestive or maybe Rebecca really has had one too many of the Aeroguan Sunrises after all.
“Right,” says Rebecca, and fumbles for her purse, following Riza outside.
The good thing is that the night air actually does do wonders to clear her head, and by the time they’re almost back to Rebecca’s apartment, Rebecca’s almost back to one hundred percent, thank you very much. At least she is until they hear the shriek coming from the dark alley just opposite: a young woman backed up against the wall as two large men loom over her, one of them extending a hand for her purse.
By the time that the thought that someone really ought to do something about that registers in Rebecca’s mind, Riza’s personal gun, the really excellent one that she makes a habit of never wearing to work, is out and in her hand. All Riza had to say about her weapon, when Rebecca had asked about it, was that the Colonel had given it to her since it, unlike her military issued one, couldn’t be tracked back to her from any of their surreptitious missions. Hah is all Rebecca has to say to that. She knows (and so does Mustang) the sort of quality that goes into that sort of weaponry just as well as she knows (and more to the point, so does Mustang) that the best sort of gift to pamper Riza with is one that Riza can pretend is only for a practical purpose.
But, Rebecca’s absolutely-justified envy aside, there are more important things to address in this situation.
“Once,” Rebecca says, closing her eyes in frustration, “just once, I think we could do normal after-party things that best friends do. Like maybe we could go back to my apartment and finish off that chocolate cake you didn’t stop me from buying yesterday, and then we could gossip and try on makeup and then mix up those stupid hangover cures they print in Mademoiselle magazine. It would make a nice change, Riza!”
Riza completely ignores this piece of truly excellent advice and instead gestures towards the alley, more insistently. Rebecca rolls her eyes and doesn’t quite resist the urge to stick out her tongue, but she gets her military-issued pistol out too. It might not be loaded at the moment, of course, but the goons in the alley don’t know that, and there’s no way she’s letting Riza go into battle alone, however unimportant it might be.
There are definite drawbacks to Riza Hawkeye being your best friend. Rebecca just can’t seem to think of any of them when it really counts.