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His Ishvalan is impeccable, and yet when a small girl, no more than six years old, tugs on his pant leg, he looks down and he finds himself stuttering. She’s got eyes so brilliantly red in the late afternoon sun that it seems like someone has placed two perfectly carved rubies in a small, dark face.
“Hello,” he says, distracted from his conversation with the village’s kohen, and he came here to learn more about Ishvalan mysticism, to understand the one culture that figured out alchemy was something dark and depraved and did something about it. Little girls with ruby eyes should be beneath his notice.
“Hello,” she returns, and she’s young but she’s speaks with a brazen confidence that makes his lips twitch, “My name is Trisha.”
Hohenheim’s mouth falls open, and his eyes skitter from the girl to Kohen. The old man smiles gently and pats the girl’s head, “Do not worry. This girl is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. You may use her name freely.”
Trisha glares at the priest and steps out from under his hand, pushing her head up in an arrogant tilt, “I am a batsheva. I’m special,” she tells him, and he should find such hubris off putting in child so small.
He smiles and inclines his head towards her, “I can tell, Sister.”
“Ah, you need not be so formal with her,” the priest protests, but Hohenheim sees the way Trisha’s face goes slack with surprise and then lights up with delight.
“Say it again!” she demands, imperious in a way that means she is used to having commands followed, and he truly should not feel as amused as he does.
He crouches down in front of her so they’re almost eye level, “You are very special, Sister. I can tell.”
There’s bubbling happiness in her voice when she grabs his hand and says, “Come with me! I will show you the well, it’s my favorite spot.”
Hohenheim looks back, and Kohen is frowning, “Trisha, this man is an outsider, he is not of our people, you cannot simply bring-”
The girl whirls around, fire red hot in her eyes, “I am batsheva! I am the Named, the blind spot of Ishvala’s eye. If He cannot command me, what right do you have?”
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Hohenheim insists, “Sister, I can stay at the village border, it’s okay-”
“No!” she stamps her foot, “I want you in my village! You – you are welcome in all the places where the light of Ishvala’s sun touches the sands.”
There’s a challenge in that phrase, and Hohenheim is sure he’s heard it before, but he can’t place where. Kohen’s eyebrows raise to his forehead, but to Hohenheim’s shock he bows to them and says, “Your will be done, batsheva. This man will walk unencumbered across the land of Ishval.”
He blinks, because it certainly sounds like he’s just been given political immunity by a bratty child, but that can’t be right. That doesn’t make sense.
“The well,” Trisha repeats, tugging him again, “I want to show you the well.”
“Of course,” he replies, and allows the girl to pull him behind her.
~
Fifteen years. He’s been gone for fifteen years, and he’s forgotten how quickly time can pass. He’s buried deeply in a book when he has the passing thought that Edward is turning nineteen this year, and he stops. The words swim in front of him, and it’s been fifteen years, fifteen years without his wife and sons, and god Trisha –
His wife is forty. Maybe now when they walk down the street together, he won’t look like a huge pervert.
He’s somewhere in Eastern part of Xing, and Father may enact his plan any day, Amestris may fall at any moment, Xerxes all over again, and he still has not found a way to die, but it has been fifteen years and it’s long past the time he went home.
When he gets closer to Amestris, he feels it, that something is wrong, is off. The dark cloak of Father’s alchemy has long pervaded Amestris, from the country’s beginning it has been a place of evil with dark currents moving the flow of soul energy. As he gets close to the border for the first time in fifteen years, he senses none of that. The dark ley lines of Amestris are gone, he can’t sense Father’s presence anywhere, and standing in the middle of the desert he wonders how it’s possible that he somehow managed to miss the Promise Day, how someone managed to destroy Father and his creations when Hohenheim has been trying and failing for five hundred years.
It seems almost anti-climatic, that humanity has managed to solve its mess half a millennia later. He then considers that this means when he goes home he will be able to stay, and he’s not sure he cares.
He shoves his hands in his coat pockets, a grin curling around his lips, and he can’t wait to find the person responsible for all this. They’re bound to be fascinating. That will have to be saved for a later time, however. His sons are adults and his wife is waiting for him; he has to go home now.
~
Even so far away, news of Trisha’ pregnancy spreads. Letters flood Resembool, people congratulating her on new life, the new line. Hohenheim would not be surprised if every Ishvalan across Amestris has the name Elric on their tongue.
Trisha sits at their kitchen table reading another letter, and he presses a gentle hand on the swell of his wife’s stomach as he leans down to kiss her, “Good morning.”
She hums and leans into his side, “Yes. Do you care about the gender?”
“About … my gender?” he blinks, and sometimes he struggles to follow Trisha’s sidewise thinking.
She elbows him, and he pouts, “No, about the baby’s!”
“Oh,” he considers this, and he thinks of a little girl with long braided hair or a son with a smile like the sunrise, and the prospect of being a father is so terrifying and wonderful he’s not sure he’d care if his children were born purple with horns, “Not really.”
“I’d like a son,” Trisha places a hand over Hohenheim’s over her stomach, “A strong son to carry the name Elric. It will belong to our children more than it will belong to us, you know. They will be the first born of the line Elric.”
“They will carry it well,” he leans down, and Trisha tilts her head up to meet his kiss, and sometimes he cannot bear the love he has for this woman.
~
All across Ishval they call him ‘sinner’ and all across Ishval they welcome him with open arms. He doesn’t understand how one child can have this much influence, this much power, it seems – dangerous, foolhardy, to give such a small being so much responsibility.
He tries to explain it once, to an Ishvalan farmer by the name of Danya, and the young woman leans against her fence and shrugs, “She is a batsheva, the first our country has had in many centuries. Her children will begin a new line, they will be of pure blood and pure intent.”
“But what does that mean?” he moans, because the language and cultural barriers used to be so easy to cross before Trisha.
Danya sighs and pulls her hair over her shoulder, absently braiding it as she speaks, “We carry the sins of our fathers. Back, and back, and back – all that sin, all that debt under Ishvala– all the way to the Great Betrayal-”
“The what?” he interrupts, because Ishavalan holy scripture is half myth, half poetry, and most of it isn’t written down. Ishval is the one of the last cultures that relies almost entirely on oral history, and Hohenheim would find that fascinating if it wasn’t so frustrating.
“Ah,” and now Danya looks embarrassed, and Danya never looks embarrassed. “It’s nothing, just a – I mean it’s not nothing, it’s important. But you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Danya,” he says, looking at her over the rim of his classes.
He’s had centuries to perfect his piecing stare, and he’s gratified when she groans and says, “Okay. So alchemy is forbidden, right?” she says reflexively, and if it turns out that Ishvalans have been hiding something important from him to spare his feelings, he’s going to scream. “But – not, I know everyone thinks it’s about arrogance-”
“It is a sin to believe you can make something with more skill than Ishvala,” Hohenheim says, because this has always been true, Ishval was nothing more than the beginnings of village and nothing close to the robust country it is today when Xerxes fell, but even as Slave 23 he knew this to be true.
Danya shakes her head, “I mean, kind of. It doesn’t – translate well. Culturally. So the sin is not in that – so Natan, you know of Natan right?”
He blinks, “The first alchemist of Ishval? The one who was cast out due to his use of alchemy?”
“Right!” she smiles, “So – Natan and Ishvala were brothers-”
“What?” He has roamed the Earth for hundreds of years, and this is new information, this is something he has never heard before.
She glares, and he makes the motion for zipping his mouth closed. “Natan and Ishvala were brothers. Ishvala was the younger brother, and he was gifted with the ability to create. Natan was the elder, and he was given the ability to destroy. Together they were meant to make the world, and so they did. Creation comes from destruction, but others didn’t see that, they only saw the light of Ishvala, and Natan grew jealous. He was no longer content to only destroy, and so he turned from the magic of his birth and used science to create. This would not have been so bad, but he went too far – he tried to create what only Ishvala and women were meant to create.”
“Life,” Hohenheim croaks, “Human transmutation.”
She nods, not noticing his reaction, because to her this is just a dusty fable told to her by her grandmother, but to him it is something different entirely.
“But Natan was a being of destruction, and life was not what he created. What he created was grotesque, an abomination. When he saw it, his hair turned white and he gouged his eyes. Ishvala was furious, and he killed the abomination that his brother had created. Ishvala cast his brother down, and on to Earth he fell. Natan had lost the ability to destroy he was born with, and now only had his strange science. Ishvala, to prove that his ability to create was the one that was pure and just, created the first humans to live on Earth alongside his brother, and so he would not feel so lonely he created them in his brother’s new image – with white hair, and eyes of blood.” Danya touches her own hair, fond, “We are all Ishvala’s children, but we carry the sins of Natan – he was not only the first alchemist, but he was the first Ishvalan. We all must suffer his punishment.”
“So,” he has to clear his throat twice before he can continue, “alchemy is not outlawed because it infringes on Ishvala’s role, but because – because he failed? His sin was failure?”
Danya grins, “Not as pretty as respect for our god, is it? Creation and destruction are the work of gods, because humans are not good enough.”
“So Trisha,” Hohenheim begins, mind racing at what this all could mean, “She – she is, so she can-”
“No,” Danya shakes her head, “Trisha of Eshkolit was born outside of Ishvala’s eye, he cannot see her and he cannot damn her. But she still carries the sin, she is still a daughter of Ishvala. Her children though – her children will be born without Natan’s mistakes marking them, they will be beyond priests and law makers, they will be holy children born once again with the power to create.”
“Or destroy,” he whispers, “They will also be born with power to destroy.”
Danya laughs and leans over to tug on the end of his ponytail, “Weren’t you listening, sinner? To create, one must destroy.”
~
His home is gone. He built that home with his own two hands, he didn’t even use alchemy to do it, he built that home for his wife and his sons, and now everything is gone.
He pounds on the Rockbell door, and it still says Rockbell Automail out front, Sara and Yuri must be here, they have to know what happened –
Pinako opens the door, and when she sees him her pipe falls from her mouth, “Hohenheim?”
“My house,” he says, “my children, my wife – where are they?”
“Oh, Hohenheim,” the old woman’s face darkens in grief, “You’ve been gone too long.”
He falls to his knees, and now he can look her in the eyes, “Pinako, what does that mean?”
“There was a war, and a sickness,” she smiles, and it looks like it hurts, “Much was lost.”
~
For the first time in six years, Trisha does not meet him at the gates. He goes through the village streets, and wanders until he ends up at Levana’s fruit stall. The older woman takes one look at him and laughs. “Trisha began her bleedings a few months ago,” she grins, “She’s taken to hiding from her suitors. Rumors of your arrival will spread soon enough, and she will find you.”
“She’s twelve,” he says, aghast, because bleeding or no bleeding that’s far too young to marry.
Levana shrugs, “She is a batsheva, and a beautiful girl. Even so young, she will not remain unclaimed for long.”
“She’s not – a – a prize! Or cattle! She’s a person!” he insists, and he would never doubt the fiery girl’s ability to take care of herself, but the idea of men presenting themselves to her for her status alone makes him both ill and furious.
Her eyebrows are nearly to her hair line, and something in Levana’s face softens for the first time since he’s known her, “Well. Maybe she has not made so foolish a choice after all.”
Hohenheim glares, because he’s not an idiot and god knows Trisha is not subtle, “She is a child. I would never harm a child in such a way!”
“A child she may be,” Levana agrees, “but a child she will not remain.”
He frowns and turns away from the fruit stand, and he walks. He ends up at the well, and he sits on the edge for a long time and tries very hard not to think of why he’s here.
“Brother!” He looks up, and Trisha is running toward him with her sandals in one hand and her skirt hiked up around her knees. When she gets close enough she throws her shoes at him, and in his attempt to dodge he overbalances over the edge. He’s just had a despondent thought of needing to be fished out of the well when Trisha grabs the front of his shirt and steadies him, her eyes narrowed, “What are you doing here? Why did you not come and see me? You’re not doing anything else important, clearly!”
She grabs her sandals from where they had fallen in his lap, as if he has taken them and she’s just not hit him with them, and shoves them on her feet. He experiences the familiar dissidence of knowing he should be irritated, and only finding fondness in its place. “This is your favorite spot,” he says thoughtlessly, and immediately regrets it. She’s bound to find him strange now, if she has not before, and he prepares to be hit with something again.
Trisha beams and sits next to him on the lip of the well, “Well, okay then. Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
He raises an eyebrow, “I know they all report back to you.”
“I just want to know if you’re okay and where you are!” she defends, as if this is not textbook stalking behavior, and again he knows he should be annoyed but he cannot help but smile. “Tell me what you’re researching. No one can make any sense of why you keep on asking to hear fairy tales.”
“Just want to know where I am and that I’m okay, hmm?” She continues staring, unrepentant and on the edge of impatient. Hohenheim rolls his eyes, but begins to tell her of his travels.
~
“Are you sure?” Hohenheim asks for maybe the sixth or seventh time.
Trisha has mellowed with age, but when she looks at him over the top of their son’s head he sees the stubbornness that is her lifeblood and a spark of irritation in her eyes. “Yes, my love. I’m sure.”
“But isn’t the point that he’s – pure. That the burdens of the Ishvalan people are not his burdens, and you really want to name him – that?”
“We will call him Edward,” she says, “but the name that Ishvala will know him by is Natan.”
“I though Ishvala couldn’t see him,” he says plaintively, “I thought you didn’t believe in Ishvala, anyway.”
She smiles, and holds out their son for him to hold. Hohenheim only hesitates a moment, because his hands are large and rough and this child with his hair and eyes has bones as delicate as a bird’s. “I do not, but some things are not so much about truth or belief as they are about tradition. I am batsheva, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and this is my son.” She runs a gentle hand down the child’s face, “He has the ability to both create and destroy, and this time Natan will not falter, in this version of the myth my son will succeed in his creation.”
“Alchemy is not kind, Trisha,” he holds his son as tightly as he can without hurting him, “It’s foul, and terrible, and even before, back when I was only a slave, it was not pleasant.”
She rolls her eyes, “Alchemy is neither the root of all creation, nor the root of all destruction. Not everything is about you, dear.”
Hohenheim snorts, because Trisha spent much of her childhood very certain everything was about her, and if ever there was a time for irony to strike them dead it would be now. Trisha’s eyes narrow, and when she kisses him she bites his bottom lip between her teeth. He winces, but she licks it afterward, and she hasn’t exactly been in the mood since Edward was born, but he knows what that smirk means. “I’ll just put Natan down to bed, then?” he asks, strangled, and Trisha’s laugh sounds like hope and redemption and everything he’s ever wanted and never thought he’d have.
~
The gravestone is extremely well maintained, and so perfectly smooth and round that it must have been made with alchemy – there are no stone masons in Resembool. He thinks of his tiny sons alchemizing their mother’s gravestone, and he wants to die. Hohenheim runs his hands over her name, and his eyes close – the stone is so smooth, that for a moment he can pretend it’s his wife’s cheek, but so cold that he thinks of small, grasping hands reaching for their mother’s warmth and finding only death.
The first sob is more a scream than anything else, and the bright, cheerful backdrop of morning clashes with the terrible, dark wave of grief welling inside of him. He’s collapsed on top of her gravestone sobbing, and he must look like a madman, but he can’t bring it in himself to care.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps in his wife’s language, “I’m so sorry – I was not worthy of your name, or you love. I’m sorry, my love, I’m so sorry, I abandoned our children. I neither honored our family, nor kept true to my promises, and I can never – I can’t – oh, Trisha.” He can’t find the words to explain his sorrow and regret, not in any of the languages he knows, and he missed a genocide of his wife’s people, how is that even possible, how did he never hear -
When Hohenheim returns red eyed to Pinako, she takes out two glasses and slams down a bottle of whiskey. “Now,” she says severely, and her sympathy has turned into something harder, “I will tell you what happened to your sons.”
~
Trisha was always a beautiful girl. But now she’s fifteen, more woman than child, and for the first time in centuries he feels the pulls of want deep inside him. She sees him, she has always seen him, and now she looks at him now with the surety that he sees her as a man sees a woman, and it’s terrifying.
“You worry too much,” Levana tells him when he drags himself to her fruit stand to morosely manhandle the lemons. “You are finally giving her what she’s always wanted.”
He sighs, “I’m a dirty old man,”
Levana laughs and snatches the bruised lemon from his grasp, “My husband was fifteen years younger than me. I wouldn’t dwell on it.”
“Which one?” he asks snidely, because Levana has marriage tattoos all along her collarbone, and at some point he wonders if she will stop getting her distractions inked onto her skin.
She only raises an eyebrow, because she has survived a husband’s death, four divorces, six children, thirteen grandchildren, and his sullen callousness will not be the thing that breaks her. “The first,” she says, and now she’s holding the lemon like she’s thinking of hitting him with it.
He slinks off before anything else between them can get bruised.
~
It’s not until he literally walks into Yuri in the road that he realizes he’s been wandering around town with a loaf of bread and bunch of carrots for nearly two hours. “Hohenheim?” Yuri steadies him, and the younger man’s coloring is all his father but when he looks at Hohenheim as if he’s got a few screws loose, he looks just like Pinako. “Are you okay?”
“Trisha’s pregnant,” he says, and when he looks down he realizes he’s completely crushed the bread. At least the carrots are okay.
“Again?” Yuri grins and elbows him in the ribs, “You dog. That’s great!”
Hohenheim glares and clutches his carrots to himself protectively, “I – yes, of course, Trisha’s ecstatic, and – but Edward’s barely six months old!”
Yuri links their arms and guides him away from the direction of their homes, “And he’s such a brat too! You guys are going to have such a handful with another! I’m glad Winry’s such an easy baby.”
“Edward’s not that bad,” Hohenheim says loyally, “He’s just – demanding.” It’s true; he sleeps through the night and doesn’t cry when he falls down or bumps himself. But he always, always needs his parents’ attention on him. As long as he or Trisha is looking at him or is in easy reach he’s perfectly content. The moment he finds himself not the center of attention, however – his son has a promising career as a foghorn.
“Winry’s a huge daddy’s girl,” Yuri says, utterly delighted by this, “If she wakes up in the middle of the night she won’t stop crying unless I’m the one to rock her back to sleep.”
They’ve reaches the center of town, and Yuri is trying to pull him to the pub, “I should really get back – Trisha is waiting for me.”
“Trisha can take care of herself,” Yuri says cheerfully. “Do you want a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t care,” he says blankly, because Edward was born with ten fingers and ten toes and a beating heart and powerful lungs, which is all he’d ever wanted for his baby, and all he wants for this next one. “Trisha got her son, so she doesn’t care either.”
“If it’s a girl, she and Winry will be great friends! You guys can have all her baby clothes, that girl is growing like a weed.” Yuri succeeds at tugging Hohenheim into the crowded bar and yells, “HEY EVERYONE! Trisha’s pregnant again!”
There’s a moment of silence and Hohenheim can feel the heat rising in his face before John says, “Damn Hohenheim, you guys don’t waste any time, do ya?” There’s whistling and jeering when Yuri finally gets him into a stool, Josie the barmaid plops a whiskey in front of him with a grin.
He still can’t make himself stop blushing, but he tucks the bag of carrots between his feet and lets everyone pat him on the back.
The Ishvalans will be even worse. He’s kind of afraid they’re going to send fruit baskets.
~
He needs to find his sons. He needs to – to help them fix what he’s broken, and oh god this is all his fault, if he’d been there after Trisha’s death, this never would have happened, he could have stopped them.
He wishes he was there to prevent them from ever cracking open his dusty books; he’d never wanted his children to be alchemists. If he’d been there, he never would have allowed them to even draw transmutation circles, if he’d been there Trisha wouldn’t have died, he would have used all the souls of Xerxes to save his wife. His sons in the military, as children. He’s going to find the moronic officer that thought that was a good idea, and he’s going to kill them.
All he loved and valued is broken and splintering and gone, and it’s his fault. He did nothing, and in this he destroyed everything.
Pinako sighs and stands from the table, “You have good timing. If you’d come a day later, I would have already been gone.” He blinks up at her, confused. “Your boys are in Central. Winry too. I’m heading out to see them, and I guess you better come.”
“In Central? Doesn’t the armor – I mean Alphonse must be fairly noticeable,” he says blankly.
For the first time humor glints in Pinako’s eyes, “Oh, your sons are pretty well known.”
~
Trisha doesn’t treat him any differently after she finds out what he is, but she stops calling him his name. For those first few weeks she said Hohenheim as often as she could, she relished in it, but now she refuses to name him. She calls him love, dear, honey, husband, even Mr. Elric when she’s feeling playful or cross, but she never again calls him Hohenheim.
He stops by Levana’s fruit stand, because they’re leaving Eshkolit and it will be a long time until they return, a year at least, and despite himself the prickly old woman is one of his few friends in the village.
“You’re all packed?” she asks, her back turned.
He nods, then says, “Yes. Trisha is saying goodbye to her family.”
“And you’re saying goodbye to me?” Hohenheim flushes, and considers making his excuses and leaving. She turns around, and in her hands is a large basket almost overflowing with pomegranates and dates, two things that will be difficult to get in their part of Amestris. She pushes it into his hands, and her smile is the softest Hohenheim has ever seen it, “Honor your family, sinner. She could have had anyone, and she chose you. You are blessed.”
“Yes,” he chokes out, blinking rapidly, “I am.”
~
Trisha is exhausted but pleased, Alphonse nestles against her chest and Edward against her side, and Ed is not quite sure what to make of his new baby brother, but he’s in his mother’s arms and his father is to his back, and there’s really nothing else Edward wants in the world than what he has right then. Hohenheim hopes his children’s wishes are always so easy to fulfill.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly so as to not awaken their sons, “I know you wanted – it’s not fair, when they get their name from you.”
Trisha yawns and shifts to lean her head against his stomach, “Darling, what are you talking about?”
“They both look like me,” he runs a gently thumb over the golden fuzz on Alphonse’s head, “I was hoping at least Alphonse would get your coloring, but they don’t – I just wish they looked like your people.”
“Being Ishvalan has nothing to do with how someone looks,” she says, “I am glad they take after their handsome father.” Trisha winks at him, but he can only offer a weak smile in return. She reaches up to tug on the end of his hair, “Do you know what Ishvala looks like? What Natan looked like before the Great Betrayal?”
“Uh,” he searches back in his years of traveling and gathering stories but comes up blank, “No.”
“They were the sun and the sands,” she grins, “They were gold, my love, and so are my children. Our sons are free of the sins of humanity, and they share the golden color of their godly ancestors. I have no complaints, nor any regrets.”
Hohenheim bends down to kiss wife, and he loves her all the more when she silently wipes away his tears.
~
On the train there they’re mostly silent, but Hohenheim finally gathers the courage to say, “I’m sorry about your son and Sara. They didn’t deserve their deaths.”
“None of us really do,” Pinako says, watching the countryside flash by as it slowly melts into the city, “They did what they had to do. They’d known Trisha for longer than they’d been married, from the first day you settled into Resembool with your scandalously young wife. When they left your sons were already beginning to teach Winry to speak their mother’s language. There’s no way they could see the murder of the Ishvalan people and do nothing.”
“Even still,” he says softly, and she doesn’t respond.
They arrive in Central in the late afternoon, just at the cusp of night.
“Granny!” Hohenheim steps onto the train platform to see a young lady that must be Winry running forward and falling to her knees to wrap Pinako in a hug, “I’ve missed you! You need to help me kill Ed, he’s so unreasonable about everything!”
“Uh, Winry,” his eyes jerk up, and his breath freezes in his lungs, because the man grinning and rubbing the back of his head has gold hair and gold eyes, “I don’t think Roy will be happy about that.”
“I suppose. Edward must be great in bed for Roy to put up with him,” Winry muses. Hohenheim chokes, and the handsome young man who must be his youngest son turns bright red.
“Please stop staying stuff like that,” Alphonse begs.
Pinako clears her throat, and both of the kids immediately focus on her. “Alphonse, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Hm?” He looks up, and his eyes catch on Hohenheim’s. He pales, and takes a step forward before wavering, “Dad?”
Hohenheim stands in front of his son. He cups his face, feels the warmth of his skin, and says, “How? Pinako told me what happened – how did you – this is impossible.”
“Dad,” he repeats, and then he crumples. Hohenheim catches him in his arms and holds him tight enough that it’s probably uncomfortable, “Dad, I don’t – where have you been! We looked for you!”
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, about any of it. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, god,” he hears the young Rockbell say, “Ed’s going to kill him.”
Winry drives them white knuckled and wild eyed to a large, well kept home and he only has a few minutes to be confused before a slender, dark haired man greets them at the door, “Oh, good, you’re here. EDWARD!” He bends at the waist to kiss Pinako’s hand, “Mrs. Rockbell, always a pleasure.”
“Oh, you’re a delight, General Mustang,” Pinako returns.
“Mustang?” the man questions, raising an eyebrow.
“Well this time next week I won’t be able to call you that anymore, I have to get it all in while I still can,” she says.
“I suppose that’s true,” Roy winks before turning to Hohenheim, “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met?”
Hohenheim is about to ask what the on earth is going on, when his son appears at the top of the stairs and calls, “Granny, what took you so long?” before sliding down the banister.
“Can you please stop trying to break the house? It’s a new house, our new house, and I’d rather not have to buy another,” Roy says, but he’s smiling with his eyes.
Edward is shorter than his brother, but not by much, and with his hair long and pulled into a hightail Hohenheim can’t help but think that Edward looks just like him when he was that age. He knows the second his son sees, him, because he freezes and his fists clench at his sides. “Brother,” Alphonse says nervously, “please don’t – just give him a minute, Brother, please.”
Roy is looking between the three of them, and his face smooths with understanding and he steps away, “Ah, Alphonse, perhaps we should-”
“You,” Edward hisses in Trisha’s tongue, “Betrayer and liar, how dare you face me?”
“Brother, don’t,” Alphonse tries, stepping in between them, “Just – give him a chance, please give him a chance.”
Ed’s face goes cold and blank, and he raises his chin. Winry and Roy both wince. “Alphonse, move.” His younger son’s shoulder’s slump, but he doesn’t protest. Edward darts forward and kicks his feet out from under him, and Hohenheim finds himself on his knees. Edward grabs his hair and yanks his head back. He sees the flash of a sakeen, and this is not how he wanted to explain his true nature to his sons, not when his eldest sticks a blade into his throat and he doesn’t die.
It doesn’t cut across his skin, though. Instead he has a disorienting feeling of having his head be lighter than normal before his ponytail falls to the ground and what’s left of his hair falls around his face. He looks up, and everyone’s solemn but they’re unmoving, because Edward is nineteen and this is his right at the eldest son of a batsheva. “Edward,” he chokes out.
“Do not name me,” Edward commands, “Van Hohenheim, Slave 23,” and he jerks, eyes wide, because how does he know, Trisha wouldn’t have told him, “Husband of Trisha, a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, I strip you of the name Elric. I cast you from the light of Ishvala, I declare you unworthy of his gifts, and I pronounce you Nameless.”
Hohenheim has been alive for over half a millennia, he’s faced wars and desecration and the loss of everything he knew, and still this cuts the deepest, twists his soul more than even the death of his wife. “Please,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and when he raises his head his son’s eyes aren’t cold. They’re burning, golden flames in a familiar face, and Edward has always been a desert child.
“Get out of my house,” Edward says finally, before turning on his heel and walking away. The dark haired man doesn’t spare Hohenheim a second glance before following his eldest son to the next room.
“Well,” Winry says in the heavy silence, more contemplative than anything else, “that could have gone better.”
~
“Hey.”
Hohenheim looks up from the whiskey he’s sloshing around in his glass, and his youngest is standing before him, “Alph – uh, I mean, hello.”
“You can still call me Alphonse,” he says gently, sitting down next to him, “I’m sorry, I should have spoken to Brother first, I knew he would react this way. He’s always been so hot headed.”
“He got that from your mother,” he says, and swallows to keep the swell of grief in his chest at bay. “Alphonse, what happened? Pinako told me of – of your mother, of what you boys did,” Alphonse flinches, and Hohenheim grabs his son’s hand, “No, don’t, any sin of yours is mine, it’s my fault, if I’d been there – if I had been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“We carry our own sins,” Alphonse says, and Hohenheim aches at how his little boy has become a man in his absence, “We know what you are. We know – we figured out why you were gone, and I get it, I do, and Brother does too, I think. It’s just – fifteen years.”
“I know. I know, I don’t – fifteen years doesn’t seem so terribly long, not when – I – your mother wasn’t supposed to die, Alphonse, if I couldn’t figure out a way to die, I wasn’t going to let her do it either. I mean, not against her will, but – if she was willing to live with me, I would have kept us that way for – a long time.” He smiles, “I was looking forward to our great grandchildren knowing her, and their children.”
Alphonse snorts, “It looks like that one might be on my shoulders.” Hohenheim blinks, and he says, “Brother’s getting married. To a man.”
“Oh,” he says, then several pieces fall into place, “To a general? He’s too old!” Alphonse stares at him for a long moment, biting his lips, before he gives in and bursts out laughing. Hohenheim feels all his indignation drain away at his youngest child’s delight, and admits at least to himself that that’s probably a little hypocritical.
“There you are,” he looks up as Winry comes to stand between them, “I spoke to Kirah, he said that Hohenheim could stay with him.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Alphonse frowns, “He’s an Elric too, whether or not he feels comfortable announcing it. Brother might get mad.”
“I can find my own lodging,” he adds, although his curiosity is piqued, “but thank you for the concern, Winry. You’ve become a beautiful young woman.”
“Well, a lot can change in fifteen years,” she says brightly.
Alphonse sighs, “Winry, please don’t.”
“Another Elric?” he asks, because he thinks it’s safer than getting into another argument.
Maybe it isn’t, because Winry raises her head proudly and glares at him, “Edward did it for me. I’m an Elric too.”
Hohenheim’s eyes skitter between the girl and Alphonse, but his youngest shakes his head, “No, we’re not – no. We gave Winry our names when we were kids, and Kirah – Kirah did a lot of horrible things, and lost his right to be known to Ishvala. But after everything, Winry decided that he’d earned it back, and it’s not just anyone that can rename someone.”
“Edward can,” Hohenheim says, “the eldest son of a batsheva, born free from the sins of his ancestors, if he declares a man forgiven, then he is.”
“Yes,” Alphonse says, and there’s a story there, many stories, because his son’s eyes have gone dark, “And what Kirah did – Edward was honor bound, he had to either kill him or Name him.”
“Kirah did nothing,” Winry says sharply, “He was reborn on that day when Ed Named him, and he carries none of the sins attached to his former name.”
“Of course,” Alphonse agrees, and he stands, “Come on, I guess you’re staying with Kirah.”
Kirah ends up being an Ishvalan man in his late twenties with a large X shaped scar on his face and an automail arm. He keeps his head tilted down even as he welcomes them all into his small apartment, and Hohenheim wonders what he could have done that even Named he cannot bring himself to meet their eyes.
“You’re keeping up with the maintenance, right?” Winry asks in perfect Ishvalan. She grabs at the man’s arm, running probing fingers along the joints, “Ed is still so hard on his leg, and he’s not even getting eaten by chimeras every other week, he really doesn’t have an excuse anymore.”
“Yes,” he says, blank faced, “I would not neglect this gift you’ve given me.”
Winry flushes and continues checking the finger joints, “Good.”
Once they’re alone, Kirah finally looks at him. “Sinner, the girl has asked me to tell you what you’ve missed. She believes me to be an impartial narrator.”
“You don’t agree?” Hohenheim asks.
Kirah almost smiles, a look so painfully hopeful and melancholy Hohenheim is sure it must have passed his own face at some point, “The girl forgave me, Alphonse saved me, and Edward gave me a name. I owe all three of them a debt that can never be repaid.” His face clears and he gestures to the beaten up couch, “Sit. This is a long story.”
~
His sons faced Father, destroyed him and all the twisted creatures he’d created. The dwarf in the flask that he’d unleashed on the world was destroyed by Edward and Alphonse. Kirah leaves him to his thoughts after he’s finished speaking, and Hohenheim can hear him making tea in the kitchen.
His sons were meant to be born pure, they were never meant to carry the burdens of their forefathers. Yet his sins have become his sons’, and they have erased and upheld them better than he ever has.
“Kirah,” he stands in the doorway, “What happened to your arm? The one your brother gave you?”
“Edward cut it off,” he says, still with that damned monotone. Hohenheim’s mouth falls open. “He said I was not meant to destroy, and to lie so blatantly about my true nature was a sin that he would not tolerate.”
“But Winry built you a new one,” he says. The man Edward is set to marry set Eshkolit ablaze; forgiveness was neither in Edward nor Trisha’s nature, and yet.
“Yes,” he says, and there’s almost a softness in him now, “She did.”
~
“You look ridiculous,” Pinako tells him when she sees him next, reaching over to tug on the loose strands of his hair.
He runs his hands through it, “I know. I have to admit, I think I would have preferred it if he’d gutted me instead.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s why he didn’t,” Pinako says, and Hohenheim sighs. “Do you know what you’re going to do yet?”
“Almost,” he says, thinking of Kirah’s solemn silences, because Yuri and Sara’s daughter is lovely and compassionate, but she is not subtle, and the beginnings of a plan are forming.
Alphonse is most like him, content to observe the world until it makes sense with more patience than anything else, but Edward and Trisha both look at the world and feel the same impatience for change, more, now. He doesn’t know his eldest son, but he knew his wife, and it might be enough.
Pinako bites on her pipe, but doesn’t light it, “You should talk to Roy. He’s a good boy.” Hohenheim glowers at the mention of his name, because hypocrite or not it doesn’t change how that man took his child into the military and is now set to marry him, which is nothing close to what he’d wanted for his children nearly two decades ago. “Stop that. Edward loves him, and that should be enough for you.”
“You’re right,” he admits, but should and can are two different things.
Still, two days later he finds himself stalking the man as he’s leaving the office, because Edward said not to come to his home and he will listen.
“Ah,” Roy says, and all the shiny medals and stiff lines of his uniform make Hohenheim want to shake him, “I was expecting you.”
“May I walk with you?” Hohenheim asks.
The younger man frowns, but nods, “I suppose that’s the best choice. Edward would never forgive me if we actually sat down for a drink, after all.” He begins walking, and Hohenheim falls into step next to him, “What can I do for you?”
“Why are you with my son?” he asks.
Roy laughs, which isn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for. “He saved me,” Roy admits easily, “I was drowning and he pulled me to shore, I was burning and he put out the fire. He’s a genius, he’s gorgeous, and he loves with a fierceness that can change the tides of a war.”
“Oh,” and that sounds like something he would have said about Trisha, “Why does he love you?”
He shrugs, “Fuck if I know. I’m just grateful he does, and I’ll spend the rest of my life doing my best to be worthy of it.”
“Huh,” Hohenheim blinks, and looking at Roy Mustang is suddenly uncomfortably like looking in a mirror. “Thank you.”
~
It’s the day before the wedding when he knocks on their door, and he hasn’t felt this nervous since before he married Trisha. His son opens the door, “Riza, you just left, there’s no way-” He pauses, but Hohenheim is greeted with neither fire nor ice, just an indifference that makes him wish the world would open and swallow him whole, “What do you want?”
He swallows, “May I come in? Just – just for a moment. I promise.”
Edward snorts but leaves the door open after he turns and walks inside. The chaos of a day before the ceremony suddenly stops, and there’s half a dozen people there, Roy, Alphonse, Winry, Pinako and others he doesn’t recognize, and maybe it’s right that there’s an audience for this. “Speak,” his son commands, crossing his arms.
Hohenheim takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry.” The Ishvalan that once fell so smoothly feels thick and clumsy on his tongue, and he wets his lips, “I betrayed my family. I did not honor the promises I made to my wife nor to my sons, and although my betrayal was done in ignorance a betrayal it remains. If time were in my powers, I would change it, I regret, I am filled with shame at my own failures.”
Alphonse is wiping at his eyes, but Edward remains unmoved, “And what do you want from me, sinner?”
He bows, bending before his son, “Eldest son of a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, I come to you pleading forgiveness. I am unworthy, and yet I stand before you anyway. I carry a number of slavery and a name of evil, and I come to you asking to be Named.”
Hohenheim doesn’t looks up, doesn’t dare, just waits because if Edward rejects him even now – he already knows there is no way for him to die just yet, and he it will be a long life indeed, estranged from his family, from his sons, from the last piece of Trisha he has left. Edward lays a heavy hand on his head, and he flinches. “There are none who come seeking forgiveness that are unworthy of it,” Edward says quietly. Alphonse lets out a sob, and Hohenheim’s knees give out, he’s kneeling once more before his son, and he’s afraid he’s going to start crying. Edward cups his face, and Hohenheim marvels at the two flesh hands his son now has, that this boy did the impossible, his boy did the impossible. “Ishvala’s light shines upon you, you are seen, you are heard. I am Edward Elric, the first son of the line Elric, and I name you,” his son pauses, and bites his bottom lip, “Hayim. You are Hayim Elric. You are newly born on this day. Welcome.”
Edward pulls him to his feet, grinning, and he chokes out, “Thank you.”
“You were cutting it kind of close, Dad,” he says, and Hayim is actually going to start crying any second now, it’s a good thing he doesn’t care about his reputation, “I was worried you would miss the wedding.”
~
He’s at the front row at the wedding ceremony, right next to Pinako. Edward and Roy are both in traditional Ishvalan wedding robes, the collars dipped low to show off the marriage tattoos inked over their hearts. There are close to a thousand Ishvalans crowded to his back, as well as a couple hundred incredibly uncomfortable military officers, and now he understands why this ceremony is taking place on the parade ground. Kirah stands in front of them, holy robes marking him a kohen, and for the first time instead of being blank the man’s face is unbearably gentle.
The sun is bright and hot, and the way it reflects off Edward and illuminates him gold should remind Hayim of Xerxes, but instead he thinks of Ishvalan myth, a golden brother casts down for hubris and failure.
Trisha was right. Their Natan had outdone his namesake, had performed the human transmutation that the original sinner could not, and instead of grasping for alchemy to replace his abilities he’d given it up to save his brother.
When he finally meets his wife again, he’s sure she’ll toss her head at him and declare smugly that she’s often right, he just doesn’t often listen. For the chance to get to know his children, he supposes he can put it off. Trisha will wait for him, after all.