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Berthold Hawkeye is dying. Riza knows it without a doctor telling her so, he's gaunt and so very pale. His eyes are glossy with fatigue and his movements are slower than ever. He's always had a thick phlegmy cough but it's gotten worse in the past few weeks; throaty, wretched, and more prolonged.
Riza's started preparing for the worst, she may only be fifteen but she knows that death is the most important thing someone can do - by government standards anyway.
Her teacher Mrs. Martin told her that once:
"Remember girls, legally speaking, the two most important thing you will ever do is get married and die. One of those things will be much more comfortable, they make coffins so cozy these days. Be sure to choose wisely if you're blessed enough to be given a choice."
Riza has always been the one to go into town for her father and that's no different now. She's on winter break from school and the weather is sure to remind her of that. Icy wind rips through her as she trudges to and from the post office, clutching their parcels close to her chest.
She sits in a bundle of blankets by the fireplace as she sorts through the mail. The electricity bill is paid, the notice from the town that elections are come up is tossed onto the flame, and then she pauses at a letter from her school.
She tentatively notes that she will be attending for her final semester this spring, quietly sending up a prayer that her studies won't be interrupted by her father. He'd hate that, in spite of everything, her father values a good education more than anything in this world. He wants Riza to get a good eduction, it's the only thing she's sure of when it comes to him.
The last letter is of a personal nature, in a script she doesn't recognize and it gives her pause. She should not be opening father's mail, but she can hear him hacking up a lung upstairs and she has no desire to face him right now. Besides, the last time she interrupted his work - with a meal no less - he'd struck her for breaking his concentration.
With a flick of the letter knife, Riza scans the thick parchment and finds herself rapt with its contents.
My good friend,
I'm pleased to hear that your research continues to elicit good results, I've always said you've the brightest mind of our generation and you've never once proven me wrong! It's an honor to be one of the few in your immediate circle.
It's a pity to hear about your poor health, I'd say I'll keep you in my prayers but neither of us have ever been interested in god. I am, of course, willing to help you in your situation and am pleased to hear that you find my request amiable; Riza sounds like a lovely young girl, she'll make me a good wife I'm certain.
Riza stops reading there, her hands shake and her vision blurs. Wife? What does that mean?
She's too shaken to continue and thankfully her father seems to fall upstairs - a sufficient distraction. She scurries up the stairs and ducks into his study. He's collapsed on all fours and hacking like his body is trying to expel his soul.
"Father?" She asks kneeling beside him, she puts a hand on his back and waits for the fit to subside. "Perhaps you should be in bed."
He looks up at her with wet eyes and sighs wearily, "Perhaps."
She takes his hands and guides him back to bed. He keeps his gaze on her and pets her cheek once she's tucked him in.
"You're well, aren't you?"
She nods, "Of course."
He shuts his eyes, "Good… that's good."
Riza checks him for fever but he doesn't seem to have one. She leaves him be as the winds howl outside the manor. Instead of returning to the fireplace she ducks back into his study. She starts to rifle through his things, searching for penmanship to match that of this letter. She finds a small stack of letters and she quickly starts to go through them.
This friend of her father's, a man named Gregory Scott, is an alchemist out in North City. From what she can gather, they've been friends for a very long time and they're something like colleagues. He's helped her father publish articles, get royalties for his books, and even sent him students to mentor in alchemy.
What makes her skin crawl the most, however, is that he always asks about her. This Gregory man mentions her as if her father has sent him photos and report cards, he mentions how big she's gotten, how sweet she looks, how pretty she is. Riza feels her skin crawl with each word she reads.
Then she finds the letter dated just before the one she has stuffed in her pocket. In the dim candlelight she reads:
I understand you're worried for her, the little dear sounds particularly fragile. You know me, old friend, I'm always willing to help. However, I have a request. You know that I care deeply about you and your family, but I'm afraid I'm not in a position to take on a child to raise, but your Riza's not a child anymore. Why, in the old days she would have been married by now. That is my proposal, should the worst come to pass and your daughter is left without you I would be glad to take her on as my wife. You know I'm good for my word, I'd make sure she finishes school before we have any children.
Riza feels bile crawling up her throat, marriage to a man she does not know, who is contemporaries with her father? The thought is unimaginable. She has the horrible image of those men who hang around her boarding school, the ones who leer at them, the ones who comment about the length of their skirts.
She remembers running into the schoolhouse with knobby knees and a trembling lip as their new teacher Miss Harper started instruction.
"Remember girls, if anyone ever tries to tell you that girls used to get married young they're lying to you," she said. "It has been abnormal for girls to marry younger than eighteen since the 1500s. In a civilized society we know better, men know better."
Miss Harper became Mrs. Grant two years later, she wasn't allowed to teach anymore after she got pregnant. Riza remembers Claudia and Samantha, two girls who didn't come back to school this year because their parents had married them off already.
Riza's breath is short and shallow as she pulls the letter out of her pocket.
Riza sounds like a lovely young girl, she'll make me a good wife I'm certain. You trained her, after all, and I'm certain she'll love North City. I've sent with this letter the appropriate paperwork for you to sign over custody of her, please return them to me as soon as possible.
Riza seizes that second page and scowls at it, the legal document that will bind her to some man who knows nothing about her except her youth. The document that was sent by a man who wants her to obey and submit; the man who wants her to be a little girl parading as a bride. She crumples it, the paper digs into her palm and grounds her.
She races back to the fireplace and throws the legal document into the dying flames. It revives the light with a crackle and Riza too feels a renewed sense of purpose.
She rediscovers the letter itself the day after the funeral. She kept it hidden in her bedroom, perhaps as a way to remind herself that she's not crazy, that a man really did write those things about her and wanted to own her. Her father was too sick to keep writing to this friend of his, it seems, and he was none the wiser to her little thievery. She'd be lying if she said she'd forgotten about it. The truth is she's been terrified that some man was going to show up to kidnap her, claiming to be her husband.
That day never came.
Instead, she finds herself with a gun trained on the forehead of an alchemist that went rogue and caused significant damage in North City. He's an old pathetic excuse for a man, then he looks at her with wide eyes and chuckles.
"I don't believe it," he laughs. "Riza Hawkeye? As I live and breathe, do you know who I am?"
She stills, her breath caught in her throat, because it can't be.
He smiles and she can't help it, she shoots before he can so much as think of what to say next.
"Lieutenant!? What the hell was that? He was apprehended!" Mustang shouts at her in shock.
Riza doesn't answer, his blood coats her tongue and it tastes rancid.
"Yo, Hawkeye, what the fuck?" Havoc asks.
She turns to look at them, her team, the men she swore to protect, with tears in her eyes.
"Shit," Mustang hisses. "You with me? Hawkeye?"
"Where's his house?" Riza asks softly, the beginnings of panicky hyperventilation arrest her tone.
"Huh?" Hughes asks looking particularly perturbed by whatever the hell she's going through.
She knows the address, she had it burned into her mind the moment she saw that letter, terrified that she'd see it again on another letterhead. Terrified it would become her new home.
"138 Brook Lane, where is it?" She asks, terror plain in her voice.
"I… what?" Hughes adjusts his glasses like he's missing something.
"Lieutenant, sit down and wait for medical. I don't think-"
Riza wrenches her shoulder free of Mustang's hand and forcing herself to breath in sharp uneven bursts. He's an old man he couldn't be far from his home, right? They have to be close… she saw Brook Lane a few blocks back and it gave her pause then too. She takes off in the right direction with the unit hot on her heals. A row of town homes hosts the address that has haunted her for the better part of a decade now.
She bursts into the unlocked house despite the calls from her unit telling her to stop. It's not that she's shocked by what she finds, it's that she's shocked he didn't even try to hide it. Her photos sit on his mantle, hang on his walls, lie picture side up on his desk. Her face lives in this space she's never step foot in.
"What the fuck?" Mustang asks looking around the living room.
Riza nearly heaves as she picks up a photo she doesn't remember being taken. One of her where she couldn't have been older than three, in the arms of this man she just shot, he holds her tight and kisses her chubby cheek. She's trembling as the terror comes crashing down, this photo is cloudy and it's not from age.
"Hawkeye is this guy your uncle or something?" Havoc asks.
"No," she whispers. "He was…"
She gulps as Hughes takes the photo out of her hand, Hughes looks horrified.
"Oh… I see," Hughes' hands are shaking now.
Riza trips as she stumbles back, her legs finally giving out from the weight of this revelation.
"Hawkeye!" Mustang pulls her into his arms. "I want this place searched, top to bottom, Havoc!"
"Sir?" Havoc still doesn't understand, maybe he doesn't want to.
But Riza knows now that the fate she avoided was worse than death. This sick man who wanted her no matter her age, who would have ruined her. How many girls haven't escaped this fate? How many little girls have their photos in the house of a man they've never met?
Riza's stomach lurches and a thin stream of bile claws its way out of her throat.
"Woah! Hey!" Mustang gathers her hair in his hands. She'd been in the process of growing it out because of a sweet little girl she met. A little girl no older than she was in some of these photos that he-
"Let's get you out of here, Hawkeye, okay?" Hughes' hand rests on her shoulder.
Riza's not sure how she can feel so alone and yet so held. How is it that she had to join the military to find people willing to protect her?
"Let's go," Mustang drapes his coat over her shoulders. "We'll figure out who this guy was and-"
"I was supposed to marry him," Riza says meekly.
They halt at that, looks of horror and disgust plain on their faces.
"When my father was dying he… he wanted to send me here but I burned the letters and-"
"Not now, let's not do this now," Hughes puts a hand on her elbow.
"Right, this can wait, let's get you some air and some water." Mustang pulls her onto her feet and guides her out into the cold.
It had been cold that day too, back when she first read that letter.
They sit her on the curb, Mustang's arm wraps around her, as Hughes gives out furious orders to get investigations out here.
Riza can't hear any of it, she sees a little girl peeking out of the curtains in the house across the way. She can't stop imagining what her life would have looked like, she can't shake the profound terror that tightens in her throat.
"Hey," Mustang shakes her shoulder slightly to get her attention. "You did the right thing."
He must mean killing that son of a bitch, but Riza takes that to mean burning the letter.
She leans her head against his shoulder. "Don't leave me."
He doesn't even hesitate, "Never."