Disclaimer: FMA belongs to Arakawa Hiromu

Notes: The longest of my prompt responses. For this prompt and the two following I've let go of my usual desire to write something different: like many other Royai 100 theme challengers, I've written "From Yesterday" as past, "Now" as present, and "Tomorrow, Too" as future. I hope what I've selected from past, present and future will be different enough for us that they don't seem mere repeats of work seen before :) Oh, and spoilers for Roy and Riza's childhood.

Ninety-four: From Yesterday

The Hawkeye household was a strange place. After living with his foster-mother and -sisters, Roy wasn't used to everything being so quiet. Upon finding out that Master Hawkeye had a young daughter, he had thought he'd have a playmate he could make fun of for once, instead of being forced by three older girls into a dress and made to be the baby in a game of families. At least, he insisted he was forced when they were caught playing. Fully prepared for a snobby little brat, with flounces in her skirts and bows in her hair, he had been almost eager to do the things he heard other boys did to their sisters that he most emphatically had not been allowed to do – hide frogs in their beds, put mud in their tea, cut their plaits when they weren't looking – and had been most disappointed when she turned to be a shy little child who had little enough inclination to look him in the eyes most of the time, let alone argue with him until he felt justified in playing beastly tricks on her.

It was almost three weeks after he had been living with his teacher and little Riza before she said more than four words put together to him. He was in the sitting room, browsing the selection of books in the bookshelf (there were too many books in the house to fit all of them in the study as well as Master Hawkeye's work desk, so some were in other rooms, too), when a slip of paper, or some similarly thin thing sticking out slightly between two books above his head caught his eye. He stood up on the tips of his toes to pull it out, thankful that even if he was short for his twelve years, he was still able to reach it without the aid of a chair.

He'd barely caught his fingers about it and started to pull it out of the shelf when he heard a soft voice saying, "Do you have it?" from behind him.

Startled, Roy abandoned the item of his curiosity to meet the face of his master's daughter. Rather than maintaining her usual cool façade, her eyes were bright and eager, and he even thought he could see the beginnings of a smile hinted at about her mouth.

"Can you reach it? Can you get it down?"

"I. . ." Roy frowned, trying to push away the guilty feeling that he had been caught doing something he shouldn't. "Yeah, I can reach it. I was just-"

"Get it for me."

The tone she used made him feel confused. Where was the shy little girl who seemed almost as distant as her father when he wasn't teaching? Roy supposed that just as the man could liven up about alchemy, she could seem focussed when she wanted to, as well. Despite his resolution to be the boss in this house, away from his sisters, he did as he was told, and returned to his former task, slipping the thing out of the bookshelf.

It was a photograph, he found, one of those old family photos like he saw at his friend Gavin's house, with everyone sitting or standing together, looking at the camera. There weren't any photographs like that in his house – none of the children would sit still for long enough to take a picture that didn't have at least one of them turning to speak with one of the others, or about to sneeze, or playing with their buttons. Madame wasn't a stickler for formality – not when it didn't matter, anyway – so she didn't make them take perfect pictures. This one, however, had a younger, better-groomed Master Hawkeye, his light moustache and beard neatly trimmed and his hair pulled back. His face was rounder – less gaunt and haggard. He was standing beside a woman seated in a chair. Her dark hair was pulled neatly away from her face and rolled at the back of her head, round eyes smiling out easily at the camera as though she was sharing some sort of secret. One of her hands rested easily on the shoulder of a much smaller Riza, who stood in front of the pair, a charming smile on her face. The little dress she wore, the stockings and shoes with it, and the ringlets that must have been painstakingly put into her hair – as it usually hung perfectly straight – and then into little ponytails, all combined to make her look like a little doll, clutching at her mother's skirt.

There was only a moment in which Roy held and looked at the picture before it was whisked away, out of his grasp. He looked up to see Riza holding it tightly to her, looking as though she was about to burst into tears, rather than seeming pleased at his helping her out.

"Was that your mother?" he asked, somewhat tactlessly in an attempt to engage the little girl in conversation.

She frowned at him, fingers tightening over the corners of the photograph. "She is my mother."

"Oh." Roy looked at the bookcase nervously. "I just thought she was dead – you know, because she's never around."

There wasn't a reply.

"When was the picture taken?"

An annoyed breath preceded another short answer: "Yesterday."

Roy frowned. Yesterday, he and Master Hawkeye had been in the study for most of the day, as usual, going through the practical uses of alchemy. As far as he knew, for the majority of that time, Riza was playing or reading in her room. Beforehand, they had eaten breakfast together, in between they had a quick luncheon, and afterwards was dinner. Riza might have been off somewhere having photographs, but Roy knew Master Hawkeye wasn't, and the stubble all over his face was too uneven to be that same well-groomed growth; Riza herself must have been at least four or five years older than that little doll.

But, as Roy opened his mouth to tell her she was doing no such thing the previous day, he saw the way she looked down at the image, and remembered the tears waiting to fall from her eyes. He didn't need a wailing eight-year-old on his hands at the moment, especially if that photo was tucked away because it was meant to be kept hidden.

"That was a fine day for a photograph, yesterday," he said, instead.

Beside him, Riza nodded solemnly.