9. Unknown Past/Before We Knew Each Other

What was he going to be like, this student of her father's?

Riza hoped he wouldn't be anything like any of the other young alchemists who had come knocking on their door: arrogant, wanting only to be able to do alchemy to be famous, or just to get into the military.

There were the few who had treated Riza as though she were dirt, and, to her father's credit, they had immediately been turned out. Her father might not have been the most in-touch with reality, but Riza knew he cared for her as a father should for a daughter, even if it was partially due to the secret she carried.

However, as much as Riza hoped this student respected her father so that her father would respect him, there was a bit of resentment; Mr. Hawkeye really did invest his time in his students and, more importantly, his research. It gave him something to cling to in the absence of her mother—Riza could understand that.

But all she had left to cling to was her father, and this time, she'd be damned if she let a student take her father completely away from her.

A/N: Okay, the song for this ("Jolene", covered by Mindy Smith) needs a bit of explanation: I definitely didn't mean it romantically. I chose the song for its sense of loss of an important person.