Ohhh, you had fun with this one, didn't you? This was a very intersting look at Gracia and Maes and how -both- of them were affected by Roy's determination to become Fuhrer.
I also appreciate that you didn't turn Gracia into a baby-making machine that lives in the background for ambiance. Men like Maes Hughes don't fall in love with idiots; it was nice to see her reaction to everything.
Again, b/c I always try to leave some kind of constructive criticism, if I were you, I might have written this from Gracia's POV. It works the way you've written it, but I'dve liked to see inside her head, as well as see Hughes' from a rather intimate perspective.
Are you going to write the dinner?
Author's response
You betcha! I'm in the middle of it now. It's going slightly more slowly than the first one (life intervenes!) but I should be able to post it by the weekend, I hope.
They've only broadcast half the series so far in Canada, but I bought the DVDs for the episodes further along, and had only just seen the one where Gracia first tells Winry that Maes was so glad to help push Roy to the top. Realizing that Gracia knew about the plan, I started wondering when she was drawn into it. And then speculated that Hughes, being the sort of man he was, couldn't have had that kind of secret standing between them when he married her. It wouldn't be just the issue of secrets, but also the issue that there was some risk, which Gracia would have to understand before she came into it. And this story was born!
Unfortunately I can't do it from Gracia's point of view, because there are bits at the beginning of the second chapter that are just Maes and Roy.
But it would be an interesting exercise afterward, to try to write a vignette of Gracia's own thoughts as these revelations came to light. Hmmm...