okay, i told you i hated it, so here's a redo. thanks for all your comments on the last one, and although i appreciate the people who liked it anyway, i didn't and therefore, here's take two on theme 9:

009. Unknown past/Before we know each other

I wasn't all that old when I came to study with Hawkeye-sensei. Maybe Ed's age when I first went to visit him, and yet…its strange…it's hard to remember a time without her…I'll turn to her occasionally, and I'll start to talk about that one time, and she'll give me a funny look.

"That was before you knew me, Colonel," she would say, and it would strike me as odd.

Was there a time that she wasn't by my side? A time when her gun and her smile weren't prodding me onwards?

There was…wasn't there? There was that moment when her father introduced me to her. "My daughter, Riza," he said carelessly, as if she were a maid rather than his own flesh and blood. I remember suddenly feeling a twinge of pity for that empty-eyed girl, feeling the quiet ache of a lonely heart pull on mine.

I knew what it was like to be alone.

Before that moment…no…I don't like thinking about that time when I was alone in the world. I like to pretend I was born the day our eyes met the first time.

For months, I ignored her. I'm sorry for that, now, but for months, I pretended that she were what your father labeled her as: a silent waif drifting through the house, responsible only for making sure Dr. Hawkeye ate well and didn't drink too much.

But it got so lonely, being in that huge house with no one to talk to.

It wasn't an especially new feeling. I was used to being alone. But in the back of my mind, I had always thought that as soon as I began this apprenticeship, I would have someone to call Father as well as Sensei.

But Hawkeye sensei was…driven…that was all one could really say about him. He was obsessed with his work, and beyond that, there was just no concept of reality.

Eventually, I turned to the only living creature in the house who seemed to be human—Riza. And slowly, though I wouldn't let myself touch her, I felt myself falling in love with the girl. She was just a girl back then, shyer than she was now, and infinitely colder. She was afraid of me, just like she was afraid of her father.

So it began, the loyalty that no one seems to understand. I would never leave her again, and though her very job, her promise to herself puts her in danger of her life, I will always let her do as she chooses. And she will stay by me, no matter who leaves, no matter who dies, she will always walk one step to the side and two steps behind me.

I wonder sometimes, when I see a flicker of something in her eyes, like when she begged me to burn the array off her back, what he did to her. I never told her about where I came from. All she knows is that I have no family, and neither does she. It's enough for now, but one day, I wish I would have the courage to look at her and ask, "Before I met you, what happened in your life? What happened that could make a girl's eyes so cold?" How did her mother die? Why was her grandfather so set on our marriage? Did she have a cousin, somewhere?

For someone that I work with every day, for someone who has been at my side constantly for the last few years, I know so little about her.

Maybe I'm afraid to ask. Maybe I don't need to know more than she's telling me. Maybe I don't want to hear how old she was when her father burned his knowledge into her back…maybe I don't want to know about what else he might have done to her…

Because she has her secrets, even from me.

But I'll find out, one day.

The day I'll be brave enough to tell her my own.

There you are, yay for me, i finally kicked something out of my brain that i'm satisfied with. yes, its strange to see a fanfic in first person, and yes, its a weird concept that roy and riza don't know anything about each other, but...i like it. so there...and if you don't you should inform me in caustic tones...aka, REVIEW

seriously guys, i haven't heard from half the people who are on chapter alert...guys, please? just a smiley would do, really...pretty pretty please?