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Summary- A young Riza reflects on her life thus far.

The pain on her back is searing. She almost blacks out from the pain, she wishes she could just black out. Then she wouldn't have to feel it anymore. Why? Why was he doing this to her? Didn't he love her? For these questions she has no answer. All she knows is this man can not possibly be the same one she once knew.

He is not the man she had once ran to when she was hurt or afraid. He is not the same man who use to hold her and rock her to sleep. No this man is a shell of the she knew. She tried not to think about it, tries not to think about anything.

She does not cry. She refuses to show him any form of weakness. That is why she will not allow herself to pass out, even though it would be an escape from the pain. She can not let him see her as weak. So she endures it all, the pain, the heartache, the betrayal without a sound. She knows that even if she allowed herself a moment's weakness, there would be no one to calm her, no one to care.

When she was little she use to call him 'daddy' now however she does not. He has lost all right to be that to her. Now he is only 'father' nothing more. He has gone mad, the alchemy has consumed him. Part of her hates the alchemy; the other part however realizes that the madness is his and if it hadn't been the alchemy it would have been something else. Still she hates it, and she feels that she will hate it until her dieing day.

She is alone, but she is not sad. She is use to being alone. She has been alone ever since her mother died. That is when the madness set in, that is when she truly lost her father. He brings strangers into the house now. They all want his secrets, but he always finds something wrong, something proving them unworthy. They do not bother with her, she is not important. She is not even there to them, just some ghost who brings them their food. It doesn't matter; they are always gone in a few weeks anyways.

There is a new person now; he is younger than most, close to her age in fact. At first she doesn't pay him any more attention then the others, but he is different. He doesn't ignore her like the rest; in fact he seems to go out of his way to talk to her. He says he wants to be friends, a foreign concept to her. She has never had a friend before. He manages to last longer that any of the others, so she decided to give it a try. It is strange at first, but eventually she finds that she enjoys his company, and he seems to enjoy her as well. As she gets to know him she finds herself feeling something she has never felt before.

She finds herself feeling hope.

A/N: So this just came to me, kinda out of nowhere. It didn't quite come out the way I expected, but I like it. I hope you liked it too, and if you did please review. Also I am working on getting the next few posts for my "Thoughts on Royai" series, but I'm having a hard time getting into character, so I'm going to go on a FMA binge and hopefully I will have at least Armstrong's done by Saturday. See you all later.