Here's a chapter before I start school again. I can't wait for the next vacation. Enjoy!
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"Ms. Hawkeye."
She had heard the name countless of times, but it had been quite a while since she'd heard it said in the deep tone of his voice. It was somewhat unnerving.
"Mr. Mustang," she replied, her voice coming out weird and squeaky. She had been expecting him, but it was a bad time. She had made an appointment at the apothecary to procure something to treat her father, but she'd wanted to at least be in the vicinity while Roy Mustang and her father talked. Not that she wanted to eavesdrop. She just didn't want anything to happen to Roy. After all, she was the one who'd brought him back.
They stood there, eying each other. My, Ms. Hawkeye, you've certainly changed, Roy thought. Riza had been fifteen when he'd seen her last, and she was turning seventeen in just a few more months. She hadn't grown much, having already been tall for a fifteen year old, but her features had become more...delicate. She looked like a girl, with her narrow chin and the long eyelashes surrounding her familiar brown eyes. And then she had some...curves. Not much, but curves, nonetheless. Now those were not familiar. He forced himself to stop staring.
"May I come in?" Roy asked her, feeling awkward. I shouldn't be thinking things like that about Riza Hawkeye.
She blinked. She too, had been pondering the slight changes he'd undergone as he stood at the door. Mr. Mustang was similar, yet different from when he had left. His eyes still had the darkest shade of night, the irises barely distinguishable from the pupils. At least they weren't covered by the unkempt bangs he used to sport. His complexion was tanner, as if he had spent hours under the sun- and he probably did so, exercising and training, for he had obviously bulked up some. He had a stronger build. He had been tall before, but he'd always been lanky. Not anymore.
"Y...yes, please, come in." Riza swung the door open wider to accommodate him. "Father is in his study. I hope you don't mind, but I have to fetch something from the apothecary. I'm sure he would prefer to talk to you alone, anyway, Mr. Mustang."
"It's fine." He grimaced and followed her down the hall. Memories flooded into him, the slightly musty smell of the carpet, the creaky wooden floor. He missed the days when he was young and blissfully ignorant.
"Father, you have a visitor," Riza said as she knocked on the door of her father's study. The only answer she received was a bout of coughing. She timidly pushed the door open because he never really acknowledged her.
Berthold Hawkeye was a grim sight as he sat at a worn wooden desk, hunched over scattered sheafs of paper. Roy didn't know what to feel, disgust or pity.
"Father," Riza called out. "Father." he answered in a noncommittal grunt and never paused in his scribbling.
"Master Hawkeye," Roy said in a louder voice.
Now that got his attention. The old man looked up with narrowed eyes.
"Mustang."
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Riza sighed as she walked into the house with the medicine for her father. The kindly doctor she'd consulted about his symptoms had told her they pointed to consumption, which did not have a definite treatment. Experimental drugs were being created everyday, but nothing really stopped consumption, only slowed down the process. There was a chance the doctor was wrong, but if her father kept refusing to see the professional, there was no way to know. She looked around her. The place was tidy enough, but there were some things she couldn't fix by herself. The leaks on the roof, the peeling paint on the walls... Her father. Maybe Roy Mustang would be able to help.
She went to prepare some tea for her father and Roy, mechanically moving about the kitchen. As she waited for the water to boil, her thoughts drifted to the man upstairs.
Roy Mustang had always been a big part of her childhood. She'd come to regard him as a friend, when he arrived. They had never been formally introduced, and it seemed her father looked upon their interaction with contempt. But he couldn't keep them apart, couldn't watch them every single minute, not with his precious research. Riza thoroughly hated Alchemy. It was the one thing that took her father away. Absentmindedly, she reached her lower back and traced the lines through her shirt. The only good thing that came with her father's obsession over alchemy was the boy chosen to be her father's apprentice.
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Roy Mustang approached her warily as she sat on the steps of back door of the house, a week after he first arrived in the Hawkeye estate. "Hello," he squeaked out. He'd seen her around the house, but he'd never had the chance to talk to her. Master Hawkeye gave him the afternoon off, dismissing him unceremoniously and slamming the door to his study. He'd decided to walk around the house in search for the mysterious girl.
Riza Hawkeye jumped a little bit when she heard his voice. She looked up from the book she was reading.
"May I sit here?" he motioned to the space beside her.
She nodded, watching him.
"I'm Roy Mustang, twelve years old. You must be Master Hawkeye's daughter." He held out his hand in greeting.
The nine year-old took it, giving him a shy, but warm smile. "Hello, Mr. Mustang. My name is Riza Hawkeye."
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She couldn't wait to get home from school. It was a Friday afternoon, and Mr. Mustang always got them off. They would sit on the back steps, watch the ducks in the lake behind the house. She couldn't wait to see him again.
He sat at their usual meeting place, cheese sandwiches at hand. Riza would come home from school soon. Oh, I mean, Ms. Hawkeye would come home from school soon, he thought.
Roy wanted to call the girl by her given name, but she had called him Mr. Mustang, and he'd assumed it wasn't proper to call her by her first name. So "Ms. Hawkeye" had stuck.
"Mr. Mustang," she greeted him, timidly taking a seat next to him.
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Riza remembered the Friday afternoons when they had shared the sandwiches he'd made and bask in the sun, until Roy suggested they play a game like tag or hide and seek. She had been a boring child, she noted. Not at all adventurous. Even her classmates knew she would rather sit and read at the side than play dodgeball. Roy had enticed her to get up and play, teaching her how to throw skipping stones into the lake, to fire a slingshot, to carve letters into trees. Roy had come from the city, but he had liked the outdoors very much.
Riza smiled at the memories and reminisced some more until the kettle whistled. She was pouring the liquid out with care when she'd heard him.
"Help! Anyone! Help!"
Her blood ran cold and she dropped the empty teacup in her hand. Not minding the crash, she rushed up the creaky stairs.
"Help!"
It was Roy's voice. What could have happened? She swung the door open and paused to catch her breath. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene. Her father, in Mr. Mustang's arms. The blue military uniform of the younger man covered in dark stains of...blood? She leaned against the door. Her father's desk was also covered in blood.
"Riza!" Roy shouted at her, and she came to her senses.
But it was too late.
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"Thank you, Mr. Mustang. It's very generous of you, to pay for all..." Riza glanced at the burial plot where her father now lay, next to his wife. "...this." It was the evening of the death- there was no use for a funeral where no one would come, was Riza's reason, so she decided to have the body buried immediately.
Roy looked at the young girl, her eyes showing weariness. But even then, Riza hadn't shown any tears. In fact, she seemed determined to mourn quietly. Roy wanted to offer her some comfort, but he wasn't really sure how. He remembered his master's last words to him, just this morning, entrusting Riza into his care. At sixteen, she was almost an adult, but Roy couldn't shake the feeling that she was younger and more vulnerable than she seemed.
"It's fine, Ms. Hawkeye. It's the least a disciple could do for his master. But I worry about what will become of you. Do you have any relatives you can turn to?" he asked her gently.
She shook her head. "My mother's family disapproved of my father. He was a decade older than her, but she was very much in love. So they ran away together. They were both estranged from their immediate families."
"What are you planning to do?" he asked her.
"Fortunately, my father provided me with a decent education. I'll...come up with something."
He gave her a worried look. "I see...well, don't hesitate to contact me, if you ever need help. You'll know where to find me, I'll probably be in the military for life."
"For life?"
"Yes."
She looked at him, this time, her face contorted into worry. "Please don't die," she implored, and instantly regretted it. How could you ask such a thing of him? She chided in her mind. But with the death of her father so fresh in her mind... She couldn't help but worry about the losing anyone else.
He frowned, almost comically. "Please, don't say such ominous things." Then his tone turned wistful. "I can't guarantee it, because as a soldier of this country, I may be just one in the thousands who will give up their lives. I am nothing but a soldier, a number, a pawn. Yet..."
She watched him quietly. It took all her willpower not to reach out and pat his back, or hold his hand, in a sudden desire to offer him comfort.
"Yet if I am able to become one of the foundation stones of this country, and to protect everyone with these hands...I think I'll be satisfied... That's why I learned alchemy." He then faced her with an apologetic face. "In the end, I never even got to learn Master's secrets. I'm sorry. I ended up babbling about my naïve dreams." Suddenly, he felt embarrassed. He'd never shared his dream to anyone before. Suddenly, it occurred to him that it might have sounded stupid, even.
"No," Riza spoke up. "I think...it's a wonderful dream."
Roy looked at her, a pleasurable feeling rush through him. A sense of success, even if somewhat undeserved, had overcome him. "Thank you. It's nice to hear-"
"The secrets my father left behind," Riza interrupted him, her demeanor obviously nervous, but determined. She did not dare look at the man beside her. "He said that they were written in a code that no average alchemist would be able to decipher."
Roy's heart started to beat slightly faster in excitement. "So Master left behind his manuscripts after all?"
"No," she replied, gaze still averted, and his heart sank. "There are no manuscripts. Father said it would pose a problem if his research was destroyed or fell into the wrong hands."
"Then what do you mean-"
"Mr. Mustang," she interrupted yet again, her voice grave. "That dream of yours...can I entrust my back to it? Is it...alright to believe in a future where we can live in happiness?"
He didn't know how to answer. Yes, he wanted to say, to assure her. But that would be awfully assuming. Mustang didn't know if his dream was plausible. Yes. Maybe. No... How does she expect him to answer?
The graveyard was deathly quiet as they stood there. Mustang was utterly confused, but he sensed that whatever he answered, there was still a chance he would be wrong. Instead, he held his tongue.
She seemed to sense his hesitance. "No, don't answer that. I do want to believe in it, as you do. I'll give you father's secrets. I'm convinced that you deserve it. I just hope...that you will continue to strive for that dream of yours." Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes were serious. "Please, stay the night with me, Mr. Mustang."
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It's moving! Yay.
