I was reading a random royxed (feat. a devious Maes Hughes doing his daughter's hair squeaks CUTE) when I wondered what Elicia would grow up to be like without that man around.

NOTE: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me. Ira and the other names mean Wrath in different languages. There may be errors in grammar and there are definitely MAJOR spoilers. I REPEAT, MAJOR SPOILERS! Also, the format might be a bit hard to read. If it's that difficult, flame. Maybe I'll post a different version that's easier to read. If it's not, review with happy thoughts!

Bob Ross: Happy clouds!

No. Not happy clouds. But please, beat the devil out of the brush.

EDIT: What. The. Blazes? How did this turn into a love story on me! I have no control of my own fics. How wonderful. WrathxElicia? Well, I can say I've never seen one of those before. Besides this one. Implied RoyxRiza.

SECOND EDIT: Thanks to Nelja I realized I made a huge mistake. DUH, Wrath can't practice alchemy without Ed's arm and leg. That is now FIXED. Also, I added a few things said Nelja requested (I'm nice that way, haha) so I split this one shot into two parts. I'm also going to write a tiny oneshot about a scene from Elicia and Wrath's childhood (once again a request from Nelja).

AND SO I PRESENT TO YOU:

The One-Shot I Wrote Instead of Updated My Other Fics

AKA

That Man.

Everyone tells me I remind them of my father.

I barely remember that man. All I can pick out of my memory are those little moment, you know? A tug on my pigtails. A flash of a camera. Warm hands tucking me into bed.

Or were those my mother's hands? Winry tugging at my hair? Roy taking a picture? I can't be sure. I was too young to really know that man.

My father. Brigadier General Hughes. It says that on his gravestone. My mother took me every year on the day he died. On the day he was murdered. Sometimes I was so angry at the people who stole away the man who should have raised me, who I should be able to remember. But then I remembered that they were already gone. Homunculi.

Well, most of them. They never told me what happened to that Wrath boy.

They all told me the story as best they could. After years of pestering, Roy took me aside on one of his many visits—away from my mother and Riza—and told me to come see him that night outside. I momentarily wondered if Roy was turning into a pedophile in his old age, but I quickly dismissed the thought. Roy is the closest thing I've ever had to a father.

Also, Riza would no doubt shoot his hands off if he laid a hand on me in that way, anyway.

And that night he told me. Edward and Alphonse Elric. The Philosopher's Stone. The massacre at Ishbal. I almost couldn't believe it. Al had gone through all those things? And he didn't remember any of it?

He was almost like me. He had lost memories that should have been some of the most important ones to him. He had lost his brother, just as I lost my father.

Sometimes I feel like I wanted to kill God for whisking my father away to be at his side.

And then I remember I don't believe in God.

Brave. Strong. Protective. Smart. Those are words everyone's used to describe my father. Why did he have to be the way he was? All those things only got him killed. If he hadn't been brave, or strong, or protective, or smart he might still be with me.

I can practically hear everyone answering me. He wouldn't be the Maes Hughes that my mother had married, that everyone had loved if he hadn't been any of those things.

I wanted to be like him. I wished I could believe there was a heaven, just so I could image that he was looking down at me and felt pride swell in his chest. I wanted people to be able to say, Hey, there goes Maes Hughes's daughter. Doesn't she follow after her father? That's why I began studying alchemy behind my mother's back.

I began with the small things, making little figures, shaping them carefully in my hands. I got better and better, although I didn't know how good I was until much later, when I had someone to compare myself to.

The first time I showed Roy what I had learned, he chuckled gently, but didn't say anything. I was hurt, thinking that maybe I was horrible at alchemy. I had nearly convinced myself to stop studying it when Roy handed me a pair of gloves. They looked like the ones he always wore, but the transmutation circles were on my palms, sewn in green. He gave them to me without a word, but I knew what he wanted to say. Words would have only made the moment awkward. He was proud.

I especially enjoy making my own perfect shaped throwing knives with scraps of metal. Eventually I learned to make the sharpest weapons you ever saw in the blink of an eye. But like I said, not until much later.

My mother would have hated it, and I knew that, even at twelve. She always said that alchemy was too dangerous. That my father hadn't even practiced it, and it had hurt him. So I confided in Al instead, who was known to be quite the expert alchemist around Central. He taught me what he 'deemed appropriate.' Roy and Alex Armstrong taught me the rest.

I met him while studying. He was a couple of years older, maybe five. That would have made him, let's see, nineteen when we first spotted each other in the woods. His long black hair was wrapped into a tight braid, which reminded me of those pictures they had of the Fullmetal Alchemist—Edward Elric. Although I didn't know it then, there were scars on his shoulder where his skin seemed to change tone, and his left leg was made of metal. He didn't explain it to me for a long time.

He was in the middle of doing some sort of trick with alchemy when I called out to him.

It was my secret spot, after all. That small batch of trees pressed so tightly together that you could barely see into them was where I would go to practice my alchemy, or just to think. This guy thought I would just give it up without a fight?

He had seemed about to snarl at me, like some sort of savage animal, but apparently changed his mind at the last second and smiled sheepishly instead. I asked him his name.

Ira.

The next time he told me Zorn. Vrede the next. Throughout the years I came to realize none of these were his real name. It didn't matter. He had extraordinary alchemistic talent, and he became my best friend, my comrade-in-arms, and at times, my teacher. I always called him Ira, after the first name he had ever claimed as his own in my presence.

When I told him who my father was, he almost seemed guilty, though I don't know why. When I asked him if he had ever met my father (though it seemed to be unlikely) he told me that he had simply heard of him, and was surprised that this was such a small world. The subject had been dropped.

For some reason, I never told anyone too much about Ira. It was an unspoken rule between us, that he didn't want too much attention drawn to himself. I followed this rule without asking questions. That was another rule. No questions.

I always wondered what my father would have thought of Ira. I didn't know. I had barely known the man, after all.

When I was eighteen years old, my mother became sickly, and died several months later. It broke my heart, not only watching her suffer and die slowly, but how sudden her death was, even after months of notice. Though everyone tried to comfort me, only Ira really could. He even came with me to the graves of my parents, which was surprising. Ira never joined a large crowd of people. It brought my spirits up to see that he would do something adverse to his nature just for me. He didn't say anything, as I stood there, not a single tear falling.

I delved into alchemy more than ever before. I had never told my mother. It didn't matter now.

Al came back to Central after years away, studying for ways to find his missing brother, and we would sit for hours, talking about what he had seen on his travels, about my mother, about what had happened since in his absence. He was the first to meet Ira. I was at the library, waiting for Ira when Al came up to me, expressing his happy surprise at seeing me.

I wasn't sure whether to send Al away or not. I decided not to. Al was a good friend, and I could trust him with Ira. I waved Ira over when I saw him approach. Ira seemed hesitant to come closer, but I coaxed him nearer. The two men stared at each other a long while, and Ira had without an expression on his face I couldn't quite read. When I introduced the two them to each other, they shook hands stiffly, examining each other carefully.

Al asked Ira if they had met before. He had the feeling this wasn't the first time they had met. Ira hastily reassured him they hadn't, with that look still in his eyes. Needless to see, I never brought them together purposely again for close to a decade. There was something Ira was hiding from me about Al, but I would never ask. That was the rule, no questions.

I wondered what my father would have said when I took the State Alchemist exam. Roy told me that just as my father had done for him, he would do for me. He would support me at all costs. Riza grudgingly agreed, though she told me she would trust her own aim with her pistols over some drawing on the ground any day.

Al and Ira both asked me the same questions, though separately. Are you sure? Are you willing to become a dog of the military?

If I wanted to make a difference, yes. If I wanted to become strong, like my father, yes.

Yes, a million times over.

So I took it.

And I passed.

I became the Knives Alchemist. I was good with the throwing knives, just like my father. I became a bit obsessed with them when I was fifteen. I felt that I needed some sort of connection with that man. And so I found myself agreeing with Riza. I liked my deadly accurate knives more than the flashy alchemy.

I saw less and less of Ira that year. It was almost as if he was avoiding me. Finally, after months upon months of missions, I found myself with a week of relative freedom. I went to see Ira where I knew he stayed, an abandoned house near the train station. He wasn't there.

How long had it been since I had last seen him? Weeks? A month? Months? I felt like crying. Had Ira really just upped and left without a word of notice?

Al. I fled from that place and searched for Al, just to be notified he was gone. He'd left several days away, while I myself had been away. Even Roy and Riza were gone, probably accompanying Al, to share their wisdom with him (or to look for a good place to retire, more likely, those old folk).

I found myself at my father's grave. I hadn't been there in several months, but the grave was anything but neglected. Maes Hughes had had many friends. I noticed there were tulips in the pile. Ah, so Havoc and Fuery had been there recently. They were at Central. I reminded myself to visit them as I sat down in front of the worn gravestone.

Hello, father. It's me, Elicia. I've become the Knives Alchemist, have I told you? I've also met a boy. His name is Ira. I don't know where he's gone. Al, Roy and Riza are gone. I can't trust any of my friends with this. So I'm here.

How does it feel to be dead?

You're going to find out soon enough, sweetheart.