Chapter 3

The Price Of Absence

Gravel crunched beneath Roy's boots as he stepped into the courtyard. Amelia was asleep in her mother's arms, her small head resting on Riza's shoulder, her mother's cheek against her hair. Tiny hands grasped fistfuls of blue uniform, crumpling the fabric.

"Riza?"

Riza swallowed – a nervous reflex. She kept her eyes closed, her face in Amelia's hair, trying to summon a modicum of emotional distance.

"Yes, sir?"

He paused, an almost imperceptible stutter in his step. "Please...don't call me that. Not now."

"Very well. Yes, Roy?" Riza put particular emphasis on his name, wondering why she had acquiesced to his request in the first place.

Roy took a deep breath. 'Here we go, now or never. Just don't beat around the bush – she hates that.'

"Amelia...is she...mine?" He already knew, but for some reason, he wanted her to confirm it.

Riza's head tilted, the nod so small it barely shifted the strands of her daughter's hair.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question would have been an accusation, if Roy hadn't been so terribly aware of the fact that he had little right to be angry with her.

Riza opened her eyes, but kept them staring straight ahead. Black Hayate was still sitting at her feet, beginning to fidget as he picked up on the undercurrent of tension.

'Undercurrent?' she thought bitterly. 'More like a tsunami!'

Roy was still gazing at her, waiting for a reply.

"You weren't there, Roy," Riza stated simply. "I found out about two weeks after you...after you left. I was late, and considering our recent...activities...I checked."

Roy tried not to flinch, but her bald statement – 'you weren't there' – sent pain through him. The misery was only exacerbated by the irrefutable fact that she was right. He hadn't been there. He hadn't been there when the woman he loved discovered she was carrying his child. No, he'd been half-way across the country, shivering under a pile of blankets and wishing that she was lying next to him.

"You..." he tried to talk past the lump in his throat, growing by the second like some sort of swelling infection. "You could have sent word..."

Her eyes rose, at last, and met his. The look in them chilled him. He had been prepared for anger, for fury...he hadn't expected the quiet aura of sorrow she was radiating. All he could read in her eyes was defeat and resignation. As though she had given up. As though she had given up a long time ago.

"You didn't ask to be a father," Riza continued. "And I refused to let myself become a burden to you. We parted on good terms, and I couldn't allow my pregnancy to be the only thing that brought you back to me. If you came back, you had to come back because you wanted to, not because you felt obligated to."

Riza stood, trying to rein in her emotions. But it was hard to push away her feelings for Roy with their daughter slumbering in her arms. Her eyes slid closed, and she fought back tears. Every word felt like broken glass in her throat, every syllable an affirmation of the truth she had hidden from for so long.

Roy didn't love her.

"Children should come from love, Roy," she whispered softly, dropping her eyes back to the sleeping Amelia. "And while I don't regret what happened for one instant...it...wasn't love..."

She took a deep breath. Those three words hurt more than even she would have believed possible. She could feel Roy's eyes on her, but didn't raise her head again, afraid that if she met his eyes, she would lose her resolve.

"I thought about it after you left, and came to a conclusion. It was a needy fuck, Roy. We'd been through a lot of physical and emotional trauma. You had a disfiguring injury, and...I think you just needed reassurance...needed to know your wound didn't destroy your ability to connect with someone else. And I..."

Riza hesitated. But decided she had to tell the truth. Complete honesty was the only thing that was going to bury this. And maybe, in time, her love for him would fade. It could never disappear completely, she knew that, but with time, it might become...less vivid, less compelling.

She released a gusty sigh. "And that night, when you kissed me...I loved you too much to deny you...and I thought you loved me. I don't want you to feel guilty, I was the one who deluded myself. After all, I was the one who took you seriously when you told me you loved me – you, probably the greatest playboy the military has ever seen."

She thought Roy twitched at that, but as she only glimpsed his outline from the corner of her eye, she couldn't be sure.

"My mind knew that you'd probably said that a hundred times to get into a woman's bed, but my heart...my heart fooled me into believing I was different. I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm not so different to those bimbos that used to hang off your arm."

She had to stop, had to take another breath to control herself. But that thought cut like a knife – that she hadn't been any different to those idiots who fluttered and simpered around him. She'd been just as gullible, just as foolish.

"I love you, Roy."

She heard him suck in a stunned gasp.

"But you needn't worry this will interfere with work. I won't bother you, I won't try to be anything but your aide, your faithful lieutenant. And if I give it time, I'm sure it will fade. And that would probably be best for both of us."

When she at last looked up, Roy was staring at her with an odd expression on his face. She couldn't place it, and at the moment, she didn't have the energy to try. Where would it get her?

Riza ensured no part of her body contacted his as she stepped around him and walked back inside.

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AN: Thanks to all my reviewers, sorry this took so long.