"Keep an eye on her." The aging man in front of him requested. It wasn't an order barked at him or even something accompanied by an irritated glare. "You're going to be the one physically closest to her. You watch her."

"President," Across the desk was a much younger man, early twenties probably at the latest. The president personally felt as if he were having flashbacks to what felt like a lifetime ago. "You can tail her with anyone you want. You can bar her from even entering the program—"

"I am asking you personally to keep an eye on her. Zira has enough of her mother in her that I can't stand in her way. If I ask anyone else to do it, she'll know. She'd never suspect you, Cecil." The older man's voice held a tone of finality. He was done arguing. Cecil's lips were pressed in a firm line. His president was aging, and he hadn't really noticed. Knowing someone your whole life, sometimes it slips your mind the changes. He would reckon his elder had a few good years left before retirement. His hair was less pepper now than it had been only a few years ago, it was far more salt. His eyes looked permanently tired, bags that made him look like he'd not slept in months.

Well, given the most recent turn of events he wouldn't actually be surprised if his president hadn't slept in months.

"Zira isn't really going through with this, is she?" His own voice sounded more nervous than he meant to let on. The president's daughter, Zira, was his own childhood friend. She was four years younger than his younger sister—probably. He also knew her determination first hand. If she really wanted to do something, she would. She was only nineteen, just five years younger than himself, and she was already setting her eyes on following relatively in her father's footsteps.

The sigh he received in response was all the confirmation he needed.

"I'm not part of the alchemy research program." Cecil reminded. "I can't help her."

For the most part, the regimes following events long before his own birth resulted in the shutting down of the State Alchemist Program in its traditional sense. Alchemists were still part of the military, and on a technical level State Alchemists still existed but their roles were split into two tracks—research and general military. It wasn't often you saw them overlap.

"And I won't join the military, Mr. President." He added as an afterthought.

"You don't have to." The older man seemed tired of the resistance. "I don't think she intends to go the military route."

That was news to Cecil. He'd just jumped to the conclusion. If Zira Mustang was following in either of her parents' footsteps she'd just go military or politics.

"Oh…" He stopped himself at the thought and blinked in confusion. "She's really trying to do it?" The President only gritted his teeth in irritation. Cecil tugged absentmindedly on a string of blonde hair that had fallen into his face.

Thinking back on only a year ago, he could see Zira's attraction to the program now. Where he himself got by on a name and an interest in the world of research and education, she was raised more in the limelight by two highly recognizable parents that were infamous in an entirely different way.

She was standing in front of him at a board with a piece of chalk in her hands. She'd scattered papers up all over and around her proposed transmutation circle. Scrap drawings and notes that were unhelpful to her mission lay strewn about the floor. Books laid open on the table Cecil sat at with his legs propped up.

He watched her face contort in irritation, deciding where to put the last touches on what she was looking at. It was probably only thirty minutes before she turned around to look at him, hands and part of her face dusted in white. Her eyes were watering, but the good kind of watering, and bright to match her pleased grin.

"I did it." He couldn't help but smile too, even though he felt in the pit of his stomach that she had just rediscovered something that had been hidden for a reason.

"Did you actually?" He raised an eyebrow. She nodded. "How do you propose you use it then?"

"For that, Elric, you'll have to steal something for me."

He bit his tongue when he wanted to ask what he'd get in exchange. He had a feeling if he hadn't, she'd have punched him.

"Cecil," President Mustang frowned, "I can't stop her because she's already figured it out."

"You shouldn't tell anyone." Cecil watched her experimentation. They'd taken this outside to a patch of sand near a river—seemed safest in his mind. It was only two days after her initial breakthrough and four years after she'd started her venture into alchemy. He knew her mother blamed him and his cousin for her interest, but he'd done nothing to provoke this. "I know for a fact there was a reason this isn't being researched."

His statement implied there was a reason your father didn't teach you. She ignored him and he shielded his eyes from a heat for a moment to look again the second it'd past and see a patch of glass between her and the water's edge. She grinned at him, that same look she'd had two days before. His heart skipped a beat, though he'd never really admit that.

Her nearly black hair was knotted on the back of her head, too neat and clean for the nitty-gritty person she was on the inside but it reflected her no-nonsense attitude quite well. There was dirt on her nose, though it might have been ash because he hadn't paid nearly enough attention to see what she'd been trying to do. It covered the pale freckles that he knew were there from too many encounters with her when she was angry and about to punch him. She wasn't wearing a shirt, not a real one. It was just a bra really, covered the necessities, and shorts paired with boots. She was all for foot protection, not so much protection of the soft, important parts.

She'd told him it was less fashion than comfort—she didn't want sand between her toes and she didn't want to overheat while experimenting.

"Dad should have hidden his idea better." She countered his statement and picked at the gloves on her hand. It'd taken two days because she had been designing them, trying to figure out what would cause enough friction to make a spark and exactly how to keep it on her to catch. They'd tried a match day one and found disastrous consequences, though Zira also hadn't had time to perfect her skill yet.

"You need to be careful that they don't find those." He warned as she tossed one to him. "I don't think my hand is going to fit and I'm not that interested in trying it." Taboo was a big thing in his family and he wasn't going to go trying out flame alchemy just because the daughter of the president and only living flame alchemist thought it was a game. "I can see the headlines now, 'Murderer President's Daughter Arrested for Treason Because of Boredom.'"

"Shut up, it'll be fine." She snatched the glove back and stuffed it in her pocked. "I'll turn around and say 'the son of the retired Fullmetal Alchemist knew I was researching this and actively helped.'"

She had a point, he hadn't stopped her until now. He hadn't thought she'd actually do it.

The President had found out only a week or two later. Careless like she was, Zira had left the gloves in her coat pocket and he'd discovered them himself. In his own paranoia, he'd caught sight of familiar fabric and pulled them from her pocket assuming the worst. Turning them over, he realized he'd been mistaken. The fabric felt too familiar, but it must have been coincidence.

Coincidence was that he'd happened to have felt the pattern when he'd squeezed because Zira, clever as she was, had embroidered the transmutation circle into a small patch and glued it to the inside of the gloves. White on white on white didn't show up, especially while on the inside of the glove, but her father had still found out.

That said, Zira was bright but clumsy and Cecil would be surprised if she'd actually managed her new end goal.

"There is no way." Zira wanted to figure out how to essentially do two transmutations at once—in the end burning through water instead of boiling it. "That's scientifically impossible." She'd have to separate too many elements to continuously burn the water. It was a lot of multitasking.

"Flame alchemy? Yes," Oh…he was just on about that.

"She won't like me sticking around her." Cecil warned, knowing that he wasn't going to win this battle and even if he did his parents and his sister would be disappointed in him. "Zira and I haven't really talked since…a little after you found the gloves?" It was only an estimate.

"C! C, get off of him!" He felt the younger girl shove into his shoulder with her own and he let go of the man in his arms. "What are you doing?"

What was he doing? Cecil had forgotten, if he was being honest. This guy had just walked up and he'd said, fuck what had he said?

"He said disgusting things about you. Zira." Cecil grabbed her wrist before she'd successfully slapped him. "You're defending him?"

"I'm not defending him." She disagreed. "I can handle myself, dipshit. I don't need you jumping on people because of what they say about me. I'm defending myself. You have no right—"

"You wouldn't step in if someone said something about me?" He growled out.

"Maybe, if you needed me to. I was right here, you didn't need to jump in, I heard him. Where do you think you're going?" The kid, Cecil would hazard a guess that the boy was probably closer to Zira's eighteen than he himself was, froze and turned his head. Zira was still looking into his own eyes but he broke the eye contact to follow her face down her neck, to her angled shoulder, to her hand.

Where had she gotten the gun?

"You don't say shit about me. Ever. You may be pretty but pretty is not worth slimy. Don't call me again."

The kid ran and Cecil felt maybe even a hint of pride at it.

"You're not getting off so easy, Elric." She spat, drawing his attention back to her when she tried to yank her wrist from his grip again. "You don't fight my battles for me."

"Who was he?"

"My boyfriend, you fucking asshole." He'd not paid any attention to where she'd holstered the gun but her left hand shoved at his chest. In surprise, he stumbled backwards a step and let go of her. Her boyfriend? She was dating that jerk? She was dating? "This had nothing to do with what he said. This has to do with the other night."

So maybe Cecil had suspected they'd been dating. Catching the president's daughter climbing out her window from your spot in the presidential library would call for suspicions like that.

"If you tell my father about this, I'll make it useful that your mother is an automail mechanic." She threatened lowly before spinning back around and headed in the relative direction of home.

"I didn't tell him about your alchemy, Zira!" Cecil groaned, jogging to catch up with her. "I swear to you, I didn't tell him. I was the one who told you to keep it a secret."

"Oh?" She kept walking, not even giving him a second glance.

"You're being irrational right now. I'm only even here because you snuck out of your bedroom window—"

"Don't blame this on me, shithead."

"And you claim I have a temper, princess?" His patience was wearing thing. "You're an ungrateful, whining, eighteen year-old daughter of a wealthy president who was lucky he managed to continue being reelected given his history. You can't handle not being allowed to research flame alchemy so you go behind your own mother's back—don't forget that you told me why your father was so dead set against teaching you. Your dad didn't like your sleazy, good-for-nothing boyfriend so you snuck out to see the scumbag without any security detail. You know what's been going on, why we've reissued a curfew for Central. You broke it alone to meet some fucker who just wants a-a-a," He couldn't bring himself to say it without feeling sick. "You think your hot shit for your capability? My own father outranked you by the time he was fifteen." He'd leave out the shitty life his father had growing up to prove his own point. "You want attention from daddy? Fucking listen to him for once in your perfect little life. My father was traveling all the damn time for the first decade of my life trying to help my own fucking uncle to research and half of it was to try and determine a way he could regain his own alchemy. My mother was caught up in her business. You know what's funny? It never even bothered me. Not once. Not until you started whining about staying with us on and off while your parents were away or how your dad wouldn't teach you alchemy. I wondered if my life was somehow shitty, too, because, Zira, I mostly taught myself, too. You think dad wanted to let me near it when he thought it nearly ruined his own life? Fuck, no. But there's nothing wrong with my life and there's nothing wrong with yours either. You're just—I don't understand why you blow up like this when people are just trying to help you!"

He let her hit him this time, fully aware that he deserved it.

"So I've noticed." President Mustang snorted. "I heard from a third party that you did a number on her boyfriend at the time." There was a pause. "Thank you. I'd have done it myself, but it would look bad."

"'Five-Times Reelected President Punches Man.'" Cecil agreed tiredly. "Fine. If you want me to help her, I'll help her."

"I want you to keep an eye on her." Same thing. "She's a lot like I was…maybe a little less ambitious and a little more driven for the sake of pride."

"I've noticed." The younger man mumbled.

"Also, I think it's the opposite of my job to explain this to you, but it wasn't my attention she was trying to grab." The president sighed and leaned back in his chair. Cecil blinked in response, completely frozen and his senior cracked his facade. The corner of his lip twitched ever so slightly. "If Zira was interested in what I thought of her, she wouldn't have pursued her research to this point."

"You're so fucking stupid, Cecil Elric." Those tears were angry tears, he was smart enough to know that. She was actually angry with him, he didn't think he'd ever seen her like this. Her hair was down and the wind whipping through the city streets blew it in every which direction. It reflected the streetlights, so it didn't match the shadows behind her. She was wearing more clothing than he was used to seeing her in the past few weeks, just a t-shirt and jeans. He wondered idly how she'd climbed from her second story window in jeans.

"I'm not the one putting myself in immediate danger just stepping outside." He countered. "You're murderer bait right now, you're exactly his type."

But of course, she would have known he was in the library that night. She knew exactly where he sat when he was there and that he'd see her room window out the left corner of his own window view where he'd sit. She'd made enough noise that he heard her, but not enough that guards caught on.

She'd staged her escape so he'd follow her.

"Dad, dinner is getting cold, oh—" The familiar voice reached his ears at the same time the doors swung open and Cecil was taken aback. "C." She greeted him cooly. "I didn't know we had company." Presumably to her father.

"I asked Cecil to be the one to help you with your research." The new partner in question thought he caught her eyes widening out of the corner of his own. "Assuming you are able to receive the funding you wish for."

"Why? He's not military."

"He's a talented alchemist." As if it were the most necessary thing for his new job.

He allowed himself to look at the girl only five years his junior for a split second. He couldn't see her freckles in the low light from this distance, or maybe she'd taken to makeup. Cecil knew his sister had been showing her some new makeup things recently, maybe she'd taken up an interest. Her hair was down, but the way it hung in loose ringlets made him suspect she'd had it pulled back in a bun earlier. She was in a dress suit still, it was a pretty shade of green that seemed to compliment her but he didn't know much about fashion anyways.

She also looked like she was about to combat her father and request someone else if she had to have a partner at all.

"Fine." She spun on her heel.

A/N -

A little bit more insight into what is about to happen.

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