Chapter Twenty Eight: Liar

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. If I ever do, I'll throw you all a parade.

Mustang stood there for a minute, staring at the orders. He noticed a small slip paper clipped to the offending sheet. It said something about 'excessive administrative personnel.' Mustang hurriedly unclipped the slip, almost spilling the whole report in the process.

It read; "Conversion of 7th Light to 1st Heavy underway. In transition from garrison unit to combat unit, it was discovered that personnel trained and assigned to administrative duty were no longer necessary. The following officers shall be transferred to the personal staff of Brigadier General Mustang-

- Falman, V.

- Breda, H.

- Feury, C."

Mustang sighed. At least he still had these three. That was good, but Havoc and Hawkeye…

Mustang turned and headed the other way, walking through hallway after hallway, picking up pace as he went. He was heading for his old office. He turned through the doorway and found it empty save for one man.

"Hughes!"

Hughes turned. "I was looking for you; I heard about the orders…"

Mustang sighed and dropped his pack of orders on an empty desk. He sat down. "Here they are."

Hughes nodded. "I already read them. Mordecai brought them to me."

Mustang looked up. "Mordecai?"

Hughes nodded. "He wanted to know if I knew anything about them."

"What did you tell him?"

"Everything I knew 'bout 'em. I told him that General O'Malley wanted to create a special unit of shock troopers for a long time and that the General always planned on using the Light Infantry as the base for that unit."

"Did Mordecai know anything about the orders?" Mustang asked.

"You mean you want to know if Mordecai's somehow behind the fact Hawkeye's on his staff and not yours." Hughes asked; Mustang looked away. "Well, he's not. He didn't know this was coming any more than you did"

There was some silence.

"You're angry about losing them." Hughes said.

Mustang looked away again, out the window. "Yeah."

"What're you gonna do now?"

"I don't know…"

There was some more silence.

"This is your own fault, Roy."

Mustang looked at Hughes. Mustang shook his head, got up, and walked away.

Hughes sighed. He watched Mustang go. He shook his head too. This was Mustang's problem. He didn't admit things. He didn't fear shame or guilt, but he was so afraid of admit things to himself. Mustang dealt with problems by burying them. He hid what was difficult and kept this persona of his maintained by outward indifference. Hughes always wanted to get Mustang examined by a psychologist he knew, but he knew Mustang would never agree to it.

Hughes got up and walked to the window. He wasn't thinking about Mustang now. He was thinking about Riza. She didn't know how captivating she really was. Or maybe she did know and just refused to admit it.

Hughes sighed again, turning his eyes skyward. This was their curse. They all hurt themselves because of this. The things that would be difficult to admit, they buried. No one wanted to say it aloud, and if they only admitted it to themselves, then keeping it silent would be a lie. So they buried whatever they didn't want to admit, and they let the acid from it burn away until it was far too late to do anything. They lied to themselves, hoping that lie would make what they expressed to others truth. But a truth founded in a lie isn't any better than a lie itself. Perhaps it was worse. An open lie is at least an honest lie.

Hughes shook his head one last time and walked away. He walked heavily, downcast back to his office. He was thinking about Ishbal, about lying, and about Riza. He got to his office and begun drowning his sorrows in paperwork and investigative reports.

He glanced over at couple of the pictures he kept by the side of his desk. One of the pictures was of him and Hawkeye, back before Ishbal. The one next to it was one of him and his wife at their wedding.

Hughes put his head in his hands and started thinking about lying again. He whispered to himself: "Oh, shit…"