A tiny hand was clutched in the palm of a larger one. It held on tightly, even as dainty fingers fought, squirmed, and inevitably broke free. Father and daughter had rounded the corner and the white picket fence came into view. Laughter, shouts, and crying could be heard coming from the mouth of children, not much older then Elicia.

Mothers struggled with great desperation to push off their groping children from their skirts. For the next several hours they would be in the custody of Mrs. Stein; an elderly woman with enough maternal instinct built up inside of her all to love a hundred or more children. For this she was greatly admired by the local parents with busy schedules.

Elicia was to be attending this daycare center for the next week, as her mother was away visiting her parents and Hughes could not bring her to work; though he had begged and pleaded with his superiors. So there he was leaving his beloved daughter with a stranger, a trusted stranger, but a stranger none the less. Still this was where Gracia had instructed him to place Elicia and at the very least he could trust her.

Elicia, who had scampered on ahead, turned around and shouted back to her father "Daddy! Come on!"

"I'll be right there sweetie!"

Maes Hughes looked around him and noted how miserable the other children appeared to be, no matter what their stressed out mothers would do to try and get them to understand that they would return they would only scream louder; some went so far as to bite the women who birthed them. His own child smiled sweetly at the other children and she was able to coax them inside, amazing all the mothers and filling Hughes with a bounty of pride.

Hughes bent down and pulled Elicia close to his chest. His placed kisses on her cheeks and the giddy girl wriggled herself away from her father's hold "Daddy, I have to go now!"

"I know, I know."

Elicia ran inside the daycare building with a group of children her age. Hughes stood up and waved goodbye "Have fun!"

Even after the other children had gone inside and the collective of mothers began to disperse, Hughes stood there, reluctant to leave his daughter. He could hear what remained of the mothers saying things like "I wish he was my husband." And "He's so good with his daughter." The mothers would turn to gawk at Hughes, turn back to each other and giggle with blushing faces. All the attention was making Hughes quite flustered so he reached into his coat pocket and rushing over to the women; he pulled out a picture of his wife Gracia and began flaunting his love; leaving many of the women disappointed as they had hoped he was single.

In the hours that had accumulated between the children's time of arrival and lunch, they had all settled down and had come to see that the rumors of Mrs. Stein were all true.

Elicia had introduced the whiney children to others who could tolerate or rather best them at screaming matches and now she wandered through the living room, alone but satisfied that she had been able to help out in her own small way. It was then that she spotted something which troubled her in a way that she could not articulate. She saw a group of children all of whom were roughly two or three years old; the same age as Elicia. They were all gathered around a boy with brown skin and white hair. Elicia could not see the boys face as it was downturned but she imagined that he was either crying or on the verge of it. The other children were shouting things at him, things like,

"You smell bad!", "My daddy says you have diseases.", "Go back where you came from!"

They pointed their fingers down upon him, the boy shivered slightly as though those fingers were fists all coming down and attacking him at once. Elicia was angry only she wasn't sure why, she wanted to hit those children, she wanted to scream. Then she thought, "What did he do?"

If he had hurt someone, then maybe he did disserve to be yelled at. Elicia didn't move, she just watched as she contemplated whether or not she should do anything at all. For all she knew that boy could have hit somebody or stolen someone's teddy bear. Soon the children had run out of things to say and they walked off whispering cruel things in each others ears. The boy was left alone on the floor; in his hands he held the reminants of a toy fire truck. It had been split in half. The boy picked up the truck and hurled it across the room; it was nothing but garbage now.

Elicia was frightened that if she were to approach the boy that he would throw something at her too…but still she went…

Elicia walked quietly over and she picked up the scrapes of metal that had formally been a red fire truck. She walked over to the boy, whose face remained hidden.

"My daddy says you should never hurt your toys." The boy mumbled something under his breath. "My daddy knows somebody who can fix this. If I take it home my daddy can get it fixed and then you can play with it again." Elicia stared at the boy and she sat down next to him. She was trying to get him to speak. "Why were they being so mean to you?"

The boy still did not look up but he spoke more clearly now "Because I'm Ishvalan."

Elicia placed the fragments of fire truck into her pocket as she waited for the boy to elaborate on what he had just said. It was then that the boy stared up at Elicia's face and blinked in confusion. "Aren't you scare…."

"Wow! Your eyes are red! That's amazing!"

"Huh?"

"Do they glow in the dark?" Elicia got right up in the boys face as she examined the oddly colored irises. The boy backed away from her. "No. They're just red."

Elicia seemed disappointed in his answer "It'd be better if they did. My eyes are green just like my daddy's. My mommy has green eyes too but their not as green as my daddy's are."

"Do your eyes glow in the dark?"

Elicia shook her head "So why were they being so mean?"

"I told you I'm Ishvalan."

Elicia really didn't understand "They don't like you because your name's Ishavalan?"

"No. My name's Victor. They don't like me because I'm from Ishval."

"Why, what's wrong with Ishval?"

Victor shrugged "I dunno."

"I'm sorry. Did they break your truck?"

Victor nodded "Does your daddy really know somebody who can fix it?"

"Uh Huh. I'm Elicia." She beamed

Victor pulled out of his pocket several toy cars that were barley the size of his hands. He offered one to Elicia "Wanna play with my cars?"

"OK! I want the blue one!"

That night at the Hughes' apartment, while Maes and Elicia sat down for dinner. The empty seat at the table could never be ignored and they were both waiting for the week to come to an end and for Gracia to return. Hughes could cook, though not nearly as well as his wife and he had to wonder if that was the reason behind Elicia merely playing with her food.

"Elicia, my cooking isn't that bad, is it?"

She shook her head before returning to beating her mashed potatoes with the lazy striking of her spoon.

"Daddy, why do people not like Ishvalans?"

Hughes dropped his fork back onto his plate "What do you mean, sweetie?"

"I met this boy named Victor and everybody's so mean to him. They said he smelt bad but he didn't and they even broke his truck." She removed the shards of truck from her pants pocket "I asked him why and he said that it's because his Ishvalan." She looked up at her father as though she were expecting him to change the very frame work of the world in which they lived. He could not stand to his daughter so disheartened and yet this did mean that he had at the very least raised her right.

"As sad as it is to say, there are a lot of people in Amestris who hate the Ishvalans and they've taught their children to hate them too. I bet that when you asked Victor why they were treating him like that, he was very confused."

Elicia thought it over for a moment before nodding "Yeah...?"

"That's because Victor's parents probably taught him that all Amestrians hate Ishvalans so when you were being nice to him, he was more then a little surprised." Elicia nodded along to her father's halfhearted answer, which was good for him as Hughes was not looking forward to explain The Ishvalan War Of Extermination and the actions that he had taken there.

"Daddy? Do you hate Ishvalans?" Maes heard this and his reaction was like clockwork.

"No. I have no reason to." His voice was serious and strong and in his eyes Elicia could see something brewing deep within. She didn't know why but seeing her father like this mesmerized her. Hughes snapped his daughter back to attention as he says "Victor is going to need a friend..."

"I'm his friend!" And just like that Elicia was back in good spirits.

"Daddy? Can you ask Uncle Roy to fix this?" She handed her father the scrapes of metal. "Well...Roylives all the way out east but I do know someone else who could fix it." He said as he made a mental note to find Armstrong as soon as he went into headquarters.

The Next Day…

The day had gone on in its usual quiet way. Elicia was maintaining her guard over Victor while helping him to build a skyscraper; which was something he had seen once in a foreign picture book. It was then at around lunch time that the children from yesterday began to descend upon Victor like vultures.

"You better get away from that Ishvalan. You don't wanna get their stink on you." Spoke one of the boys to Elicia

A violent chorus of hatred swarmed around Elicia and Victor. Elicia continued to fight back against their verbal assault but Victor...he just sat there taking it all. She couldn't stand to see anyone so beaten.

"Stop it!" Elicia's cry had silenced the rotten brats and had gotten Victor's attention. "Stop making fun of Victor. Just because he's Ishvalan and has red eyes doesn't mean he's any different from you. He's my friend and unless you want my daddy to come down here, you'll leave him alone."

This left the children speechless and Victor's mouth agape; never in his young existence had he ever witnessed anyone stand up for him like that. The children scoffed and walked off indignantly. They would be sure not to talk to Elicia again but she was fine with that, she already had a friend.

Ugh! I have got to get back to writng -_-

Well I at least wrote this much. I don't know about you but I always feel accomplished when ever I or someone else writes a fanfic in which Hughes is still alive. There are so few after all.