Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, but I do own Addy

Notes: I have two very good reasons for being a day and a half late to post this. Reason number one: a test and an essay, completed and handed in yesterday and the day before. Reason number two: flooding. Apparently if you look on the weather thingy-ma-bob, it looks like a cyclone. I'm alive, and the rain stopped in the past hour or so, so the points in the road where water is waist high (about two kilometres from my house) won't be getting deeper, at the very least. People have drowned, others are missing. For my readers who believe in God, I would appreciate your prayers for the people who are being affected by this.

Okay, now I have my flood statement out of the way, here we have the story. There is a certain -cough- revelation in the first section of this chapter. It would be a great place for me to start a new chapter just after that section, because it ends so well, but it was only eight hundred or so words, and I think that that's a bit of a bad attempt on my part, so I included other sections afterwards. Please, let me know what you think. I really want to know :D

Chapter Thirteen: In Which Revelations Are To Be Had

By the end of training that week he sat on the bench, resentfully watching the others go through drills. He'd managed to pull his hamstring, and was told to go sit it out today so that he wouldn't tear the muscle and put himself completely out of commission for weeks.

At least this time it was a health reason and not a skill reason that had placed him on the bench. All the same, this wasn't good for his image, self-confidence, or his game. This was terrible. He had been told that he wouldn't be able to play in the matches this week, but should be fine after that. What great timing that was!

When the others left to wander into the showers, Maes came and sat by him. The bespectacled man took one look at Roy's sullen posture and sighed.

"What now, Roy?"

He looked up, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Another argument with Riza?"

"No."

"Try again, bucko," Maes said sarcastically. The man's voice got more aggravated as he went on. "You just pulled your hamstring because you went to kick the ball and missed. You. Roy Mustang. You missed the ba–"

"Alright, already!" Why did Maes always have to know when he was upset? It was becoming too much of a trend, and Roy couldn't stand it. It was as though he could read Roy like a book. A book sitting open to the current page, in large-print type so even people with bad vision couldn't miss it.

"So why did you miss the ball, then?"

Roy clicked his jaw shut. If he had to listen to Maes going on about his perfect family one more time, he'd just have to jump up and throttle the man. Nothing was perfect in Roy's life. Not since his career had just started slipping, anyway. He couldn't already be going down in the world. Not when he had to support–

"Why did you miss the ba–?"

"I slept with another woman, okay!?"

"–ll . . ."

Both men fell silent, and the stadium took on an eerie stillness. Roy found himself looking over his shoulder to make sure that no one else was around, and that no one had overheard what he had said.

"What?" Now this was a first – the tone in Maes' voice gave him an air of genuine confusion rather than the persistent whine he'd adopted lately. He almost sounded hurt. "B-but . . . Why? When did this happen?"

Roy crouched forwards, his head in his hands, and elbows on his knees. He really didn't want to be thinking about this. In fact, he'd tried his hardest to forget it, but how could he when the evidence of it lay in his everyday life? "It was just . . ." It wasn't just anything. It was him being a complete idiot – no 'just' or 'but' or 'little bit' about it. "Two years ago," he said, answering the question he could.

"Why?" Maes asked again, his eyes wide. The expression on his face made him look horrified. The pain the older man showed put Roy in mind of what Addy might have looked like if he and Riza had ever had to tell her they were getting a divorce. Luckily it hadn't come to that. He didn't think he'd be able to stand the same expression on his daughter.

"I don't know. I don't even remember it anymore!" Now that was a lie. She had been a crafty, buxom brunette who lavished attentions on him all night before seducing him, and not even demanding a pay-off the very next morning. It was just lucky for him that she hadn't gone to the media anyway – then his whole career would have been over, Addy's life would have been ruined, and Riza . . . Well, who knows what Riza might have done if the one thing keeping them together now – Addy's safety – was already compromised.

Maes frowned – Roy knew it had been a bad idea to tell him. "So, I take it then that Riza knows?" Roy nodded. "How long has she known for?"

"I told her about a month after it happened" – a strangled groan escaped from Maes' throat – "which made it all the worse, because then she was angry I'd kept it from her for that long, too. But things calmed down," he admitted. "We decided we didn't want to make something big of it, for Addy's sake. She's got it tough already – she doesn't need to grow up with her parents divorced, as well."

"Things calmed down?" Again, that sound of genuine confusion popped into Maes' voice. This story and the current situation didn't fit together. "If things calmed down, then why are there so many problems still?"

Now this was the hardest part; the 'minor detail' that had put Roy on the receiving end of the silent treatment for a whole week. Seven days. One-hundred and forty-eight hours. Not a single word, laugh or smile – not even a tear. She had barely looked at him. It was like torture. "Some time last year the . . . 'other woman' turned up on the doorstep with a baby."

He couldn't even look up to meet Maes' eyes, but the man let out another groan, and a sickly-sounding "Roy . . ."

Roy's eyes couldn't focus on the stadium before him. His hands twisted together, fidgeting, and he continued on. "Right in front of Addy and all, she starts making this huge fuss about child-support payments. At this stage, Riza wasn't having me stay behind with Sylvia while she took Addy away, so I drove Addy to my parents and by the time I came back, Riza and Sylvia were sitting there, glaring at each other so hard it's a surprise that they hadn't turned to stone." The two women had looked about ready to pick up cutlery and start throwing it. He wasn't sure whether they would have kept from it so well if the baby hadn't been in the room.

He stared at the grass beneath his feet. Another long silence passed, and he turned again to check that no one had come out of the change rooms yet.

Maes wasn't talking, but Roy didn't blame him. It was a lot to suddenly process that his best friend had fathered a child through an affair. It didn't even help that it was a one-night stand.

The odd thing was – and Roy had thought about this many times before – that if it had been a one night stand and there was no baby, then it could be a problem much more easily resolved. An incredibly stupid, disloyal and idiotic mistake, but he regretted it wholeheartedly, and he'd never go back to the brunette. If it had been a long-term relationship, that would have been hard for Riza to bear, but she would have grit her teeth and told him not to do it again – that's the sort of woman she was. But now there was a child involved the fact that he only did it once and didn't plan to repeat the action didn't help him the slightest bit. There was a permanent result already, and he couldn't change it no matter how much he tried. The monthly payments affirmed that.

"So . . . How old is the kid?" Maes was obviously trying to accustom himself to the idea, but the fact that neither of them could look the other in the eye showed just how devastating the news was.

It took Roy a second to calculate. "Must be about . . . sixteen months now. His name's Bryce," he added, and after a pause, "He's got my eyes."

"Roy, I j- I just . . . I can't–" Maes stuttered.

Roy let out a harsh bark of laughter. "And that's what's ruined my marriage," he said with a forced smile. "Add to that the guilt, resentment and stubbornness that accumulates over a period of time – oh, and the fact that my wife thinks I'm a controlling bastard – and that's how we've made it here!"

Without a mind for his pulled hamstring, he rose to his feet and limped away, leaving Maes alone on the bench. He didn't feel like facing Riza tonight. Somehow talking about something just made it seem as though it was that time again, and he couldn't help but feel that he'd get home and she'd be there avoiding his eyes and not talking to him once again. Just like the old days. Maybe he'd choose to sleep on the couch – it was just like going out camping, anyway.

Riza didn't hear the door open and slam shut when Roy got home. She was too busy swimming furious laps in the pool. It may haev been winter, but she needed to expel her energy somehow. Two more times that week – even when she changed the time that she left to go to lunch – she had met 'Mr. Greed' at the bakery again.

Both times he was dressed as the professional businessman, his round sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose yet again. He didn't carry a briefcase with him, which told her that rather than just passing through he must have actually worked in the area. Either that or he'd left his things in his car, which might have been parked nearby.

On the Wednesday he had arrived just before she was served, so she was able to get away within two simple minutes. On the Thursday she had considered not going to that bakery, in case he came again, but instead she went early and didn't see him. On the Friday she had run late with the document she was working on, and managed to get to the bakery at the same time as he had. They exchanged glances – his amused, and hers stubborn – and he opened the door for her. She wasn't about to start getting her lunch from somewhere else just because he was there. He wasn't going to 'scare' her away. She marched through with her nose in the air.

"This is becoming a habit, Riza. If you didn't get here before me the other day, I'd think that you've been following me," he grinned, sliding his sunglasses from the bridge of his nose up into his hair.

She looked at him in shock. "Following you? I can't avoid you – I don't want to follow you."

He ignored her and went right on, laughing. "I think I see you more often than I see my family. Isn't that enough that we must be becoming friends by now?"

"Now that's too much for even you to believe," she scoffed. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and mentally cursed the time it was taking the man at the counter to decide what he wanted to get.

"No, I think that you find me dashing," he told her, smiling slyly and nudging her in the ribs with his elbow.

Her arms uncrossed quickly, ready to push him away, but he merely smiled at her again – that agonising, self-assured smirk that seemed so familiar – and raised his eyebrows, already back where he had been standing beforehand. Still too close. If it wasn't so busy in the bakery she was sure that one of the bakery workers would notice and tell him off for harassing a customer. As it was, however, they were all preoccupied out the back or serving the uncertain customers at the counter.

The very moment she had her lunch Riza had left the bakery and strode back to work at the fastest walking pace she could manage. He would not make her run.

Now, she swam laps in the pool to cool herself off. The exercise should have been helping her to get it off her mind, but it wasn't working yet. She angrily pushed herself off the wall to swim her thirtieth lap.

That weekend, during the game against Drachma, Roy watched purely from a spectator's view. It gave him a different perspective – that was for sure. In his mind the advantages and disadvantages equalled out; he couldn't play, but he could see all of the players on the field and how their performances were going.

Soon into the match he was able to see just why Amestris' players from the North, who played as the team's defenders, were better against the Drachmans – Buccaneer and Miles' tackles were more based around strength and power than the agility the players from Central relied on. This also meant that in penalty kicks, Buccaneer was able to boot the soccer ball three-quarters of the way up the field and make it past the Drachmans, rather than only to the half-way mark, as most other players could manage. It wasn't just the distance, but the power with which the ball moved – it sped past the Drachmans trying to get to the goals, and right into the waiting feet of an Amestrian player.

By the end of the game, Roy was still upset that he hadn't been able to play, but he was glad that he'd been able to make the observations of his team. As the Team Captain, it would help him to understand how to direct them.