Riza wasn't listening, though, the conversation tuned out in the background. Mustang was still smiling slightly at her, eyes warm but tired from the week they'd had, soft around the edges.
She found it difficult to look away.
Perhaps, if she looked a little harder and a little longer into his eyes, she could still see the warm adoration he held for her, that lingered in his expression in soft moments like these.
She refused to look that hard, however. She couldn't - it was too painful.
Forcing herself to tear her gaze away, she turned her attention back to the fire and the other men’s conversation, forcing a bemused smile and shaking her head, like she'd been paying attention all along. She could still feel Mustang's eyes on her, sending a shiver of awareness down her spine.
As she sat there, dually shrouded in the comforting heat of the flickering fire and Mustang's scent, his shirt still warm from his body, her team telling jokes and laughing around her, she felt herself relax. It felt like old times a little, back in East City before Hughes had died and her Colonel had become obsessed with catching his killer. She felt a sense of belonging again, a sense of community amongst their team, now that they were all back together, working towards an important goal.
It was nice, she reflected. Her team was one of the only times where she had felt such a sense of belonging. She'd never really felt like she'd belonged anywhere - certainly not in her father’s house, or in the small town she grew up in, nor in the military academy, especially after the war. But she knew without a doubt that she belonged here, with her team.
