It has NOT been a year since I updated this fic, thank you very much. It's been 51 weeks. You can't rush genius. And technically I finished it yesterday, but decided that it didn't want to work for me.

After reading the first article, Hohenheim found himself obsessively reading every single paper he could get his hands on. He was surprised at just how much they had to say about the Fullmetal Alchemist. About Edward.

Destruction seemed to follow him everywhere he went, but so did word about his good deeds. Sure he blew up a water tower, but he also ousted a dictatorial mafia boss. Central may have nearly been frozen over, and a few public buildings might be missing pieces, but Central didn't actually freeze over.

How had his son been out doing all of these things without Hohenheim having a single clue! How! How had it taken three years to learn that his own son…

How could things have gotten so far that his son… a State Alchemist! Worse than just a Dog of the State, a chess piece in the Dwarf in the Flask's scheme. And Al… how…

He needed answers.

It was the thought of what those answers might be that had his stomach in knots though. He hadn't been this nervous since… since Edward was born, really. He had spent Trisha's entire delivery pacing a hole in the ground outside while she screamed, hating himself for doing that to her.

Then when she called him in to come see him… he had never really known what perfection looked like until that moment.

He had the sinking feeling in his heart that the results of this nervousness would be far less gratifying.

He wouldn't allow himself to dwell on the possible answers he might receive though. He couldn't. The thoughts, the possibilities, were too terrifying. If he even began to think about what he might find in Resembool, he would cut off the thought in its roots, even at a couple of points listing off the elements of the Periodic Table just to keep his mind off it.

He had hardly been able to go a single night since he left a decade ago without thinking of Trisha or his children. How would he face them now?

Except he probably wouldn't be facing them now. Edward and Alphonse were probably off elsewhere in the country being heroes…

But Trisha… unless she was— Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon…

His heart was in his throat as he stepped off the train on the Resembool platform. The ticket master at the station seemed surprised after an automatic 'Welcome home!'. After all, not many people stopped at Resembool unless they actually lived there. Although the man did start yelling at him as he walked by, something about whether he had ever been there before, he kept walking.

His mind was on one thing and one thing only.

Well. Two.

The directions to his old house, the only home he had really known since Xerxes, and a continually running list of elements.

Iron, Cobalt, Nickle, Copper, Zinc…

His feet knew the path well enough though, and in almost no time (and without passing anyone thankfully) he found himself standing at the base of the hill.

He knew the image.

The road weaved its way through the tall grass and led up to a house on a hill. A tree spread shade over the area. A rope swing hung from the largest branch. Near the tree and the swing was a clothes line with brightly colored clothes hanging from it.

Hanging clothes on the line was a beautiful woman in a purple dress and a white apron. Her brown hair was not in the ponytail he had become associated with, but in a long braid down her back.

The heart lodged in his throat sank down to his toes.

That… was not his house…

The tree was burned, blackened on one side of the trunk. The swing he had once so carefully repaired was nonexistent, though a half charred plank of wood sat near the base of the tree. The foundations of what had once been his home poked out of the ground like the mouth of some foul creature, marring the beautiful green land.

He was so confused he couldn't even speak his confusion. Even the souls inside him were stunned into silence.

What had happened here?

He fought the urge to go digging through the piles of rubble for some sort of answer. Afraid he'd find something he didn't want to know.

It wouldn't help.

Hohenheim—

You can't assume—

We don't know—

Find out before—

Hohenheim—

Listen—

He ignored all the voices, blocked them so that he didn't have to listen.

There had to be an explanation.

What?

What could possibly have happened?

What…

There was only one place he could find answers.

Selenium, Bromine, Krypton.

If anything had happened to her…

Zirconium, Niobium.

Just one hill over.

Palladium, Silver, Cadmium, Indium, Trisha, Antimony… no, Tin, Alphonse, NO. Tin, Antimony, Tellirium, Iodine, Edward…

The dog started barking at him, breaking his concentration.

Iodine, Xenon… had the house burned down? Was Trisha in it? Was she disfigured? In too much pain to move? If so, he would heal her that very moment!

Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten.

Were the boys working for the state to pay her medical bills? Was Alphonse so disfigured he had to wear the armor? Ed lost his arm?

Platinum, Gold, Mercury, Lead… no he had skipped Thallium… if anyone would know…

The door pulled open, no doubt because of the dog's warning. He wasn't surprised to see his old friend, short, with her hair pulled back and a pipe in her hand.

"Hohenheim! What are you doing-" she demanded, mouth open in shock so that her pipe fell out of her mouth.

Astatine, Radon, Francium, Radium.

"Pinako," he said, cutting her off. "... what happened to my house?"

She went about her work with her lips pursed, practically forcing him down into a chair and then bustling off to get something to drink. His mouth still felt dry and his heart was pounding in his chest. He couldn't stay still, so he stood up and made his way over to the ever present picture board. She had put that up the day she and Dan had gotten married and moved into this house. The first picture was a faded black and white from their wedding. It had been taken down years ago, but the board had stayed.

There were all sorts of picture there, and Hohenheim saw several images of a smiling, blue eyed, blond girl who could only be her granddaughter Winry. She had been quite the precocious two year old, just like her mother. She was accompanied in several of the pictures by two blond boys, who he recognized with a lurch behind his navel as his sons. They had grown up so much. Al had barely started sleeping in a big boy's bed with Ed when he had last seen him. In these pictures he was clearly independent enough to use the bathroom by his own.

And then… something sank inside him. His heart was already in his toes so it must have been his stomach, or maybe his hopes.

The rest of the pictures still featured a blond girl and boy, but the boy now had an automail arm. The second blond boy had disappeared, replaced instead by his old Cretan armor, only with red eyes instead of empty holes where eyes would usually be.

"So it's true…"

"Hohenheim, where did you— Oh."

He turned around and stared at her. "My boys… the house, Pinako, where is Trisha? What happened here?"

She had the same expression on her face as the time that he had come back and asked where Dan was.

"You're going to want to sit down again."

He decided to do what she suggested. Nothing was right here. Nothing. She took the seat opposite of him, pouring two glasses of one alcoholic beverage or another and then sliding the glass across the table. He caught it with skill that only came from practice (practice that only came by spending time with her — she had been the one to drag him into his first bar.)

"Pinako, what—"

"I'm not quite sure how to say this… You've been gone for a long time, Hohenheim, you have to remember…" Over ten years. Twelve years of loneliness. Twelve years of dreaming about this moment. Twelve years of having nightmares where it ended up just like this.

"What?"

"... Trisha… Hohenheim, she's…" Pinako winced. "I'm sorry, Hohenheim… she's dead."

He was ultimately glad that Pinako had insisted he sit down before hearing what she had to say. If he had been standing, he wasn't sure he wouldn't have been able to stay that way for long.

"Dead?"

"I'm so sorry."

He was actually quite proud of how well he managed to keep his composure, considering his nightmares seemed to be coming true before his very eyes.

"How?"

"An illness came through the town. There was no way that anyone could do anything about it. I tried my best, but by the time the doctor got here it was already too late." The doctor. But Resembool's doctors lived right here. Why would they have had trouble treating their childhood best friend? That didn't make sense.

"What about Urey and Sara?"

"... They're dead too. Ishval."

"I'm sorry," he said automatically, all the while inwardly trying to fight the feeling that he was drowning.

Trisha was dead.

His angel… gone.

No longer on the earth.

He knew of course that she was going to die one day. It was one of the reasons he had tried so hard to stay away from her at first. Watching Pinako get old while he stayed the same was bad enough, he couldn't have stood to watch her do the same. But she wasn't supposed to die so soon! He wanted to grow old with her. Most of what he had done he had done so that they could be together. So that they could turn grey together. Play with their grandchildren.

She wasn't supposed to die. Not Trisha. Not yet. And no so long ago without him even there to have heard about it.

You could have saved her, a voice in his head told him. He snapped a "Shut up!" at the souls inside him before one of the gentler ones told him that they hadn't said anything.

That voice was his own.

If he had been there, if he hadn't left, if he had gotten news and returned home in time… he probably would have been able to save her. He had extensive experience with medical alchemy. It would have been the matter of a simple transmutation and the world would still have his angel. His sons would still have their mother.

"The boys," he said, cutting Pinako off from the speech she was giving about grief. "What about them?"

If possible, her expression became even grimmer. It had to be that the house burned down causing Ed to lose his arm and Al to become so horribly disfigured that he took to wearing the armor. It was a horrible wish to think, but a far better alternative to the other story he could think of. Why the Fullmetal Alchemist though? They needed something to live off of?

"They couldn't stand not having her."

No. No, no, no, no, no… Not that anything but that.

"I had no idea what they were planning. I didn't even know they had come home — they got an alchemy teacher to take them in down South — and they got all the ingredients ready."

He wanted to beg her to stop, but she kept talking and he kept listening.

Each word added an extra layer of horror to this nightmare. The taboo. His sons had committed the taboo. They tried to alchemically mess with human life. It was impossible to bring a human back to life, utterly impossible, but even attempting… Al's entire body. Ed's leg. Then Ed's arm for Al's soul. It was such incredibly advanced alchemy he couldn't help but be impressed.

Then the Flame Alchemist showed up and offered him a spot with the State to try to get their body's back. 11 years old. His boy was 11. Hohenheim himself had at least been other than that when he had sold his soul away by taking Dwarf in the Flask, Homunculus's offer to teach him. But Ed was only 11 when he took the offer, got automail… twelve when he became the Fullmetal Alchemist.

He could hardly respond to her when she finished. He couldn't actually, just sat there, staring straight forward.

Edward…

Alphonse…

… Trisha.

He felt his chin start to quiver as the tears threatened to make an appearance. His angel… his sons…

He stood up abruptly.

"Where is her grave?"

"Hohenheim—"

"Pinako please…" His voice cracked as he said the words and he could see her eyes softening.

"The graveyard. You remember where that is?"

He nodded. He had gone there a couple of times with Trisha. Once to her mother's funeral, again to her Aunt's. Again to be introduced to her father and a few more times throughout their marriage to visit.

Now he would be visiting her.

"Do you want company?"

"No."

This was something he had to do alone. He had to see it with his own eyes. See the proof that all that was ever right with the world was gone.

Sometimes Hohenheim would have traded all the wisdom in the world for the chance to do something incredibly stupid.

He saw into his sons' minds.

In that moment when he walked in the graveyard, grass crunching slightly under his feet, breathing in the mist from the approaching night, he would have given anything to bring Trisha back to life. He would have broken the rules of the universe, traded all the souls within him including his own, studied and theorized until his brains melted out of his head… anything just to see her smile one more time.

He wanted it so bad. He would have killed for it, he would have died for it. At least it would have been doing something, not just standing there, staring, scanning for the ultimate proof that she was gone.

It was nearly at the very front.

He nearly fell to his knees at the sight.

Even though he'd been told, it was one thing to hear it and another to actually see her gravestone.

Trisha Elric

1881-1904

He used to hate seeing her birthdate, a whole four hundred years after his own. It reminded him that no matter how much they pretended otherwise, he was old enough to be her fifteenth grandfather.

Now it was her death date that tormented him.

1904

She had been gone for almost ten years. And he had had no clue that his world might as well be over. More than just loving him, she had given him a reason to want to live again. She had opened up the world to him and allowed him to see the beauty in it once again.

Without her? What was the point?

He hadn't actively ignored the souls inside him since he had first become aware of them. But now as they began to rant at him, he blocked their voices firmly from his mind. For once he just wanted to be stupid. He didn't want to have the wisdom to know that he had to move on. Right now, he just wanted to lose himself in his grief.

The tears were pressing against his eyes again. He couldn't let them come. He wouldn't. No matter how much he wanted to fall down, sobbing, screaming at the earth that this wasn't fair, why him… it wouldn't do a thing.

Then he heard the pounding of boots coming down the road and turned to tell Pinako he didn't need anyone— when he realized the person was not Pinako.

Edward.

His son looked just as surprised to see him there. His golden eyes went wide.

Why did the boy have to have the worst timing?

The only thing he wanted more than to talk to his son was to have Trisha back. Talk about what had happened – the transmutation, the truth about State Alchemists… even his own secret. He had never wanted Ed to have anything to do with his past, except maybe the color of his eyes. He didn't want Ed to be involved at all, but the boy had gone and involved himself by performing the Taboo and getting recruited by the State. It was unavoidable, and he had to know for his own safety.

Just anytime but now.

Even though Ed had always taken after him, he could still see her in his face. Despite how long it had been and the fact that he would never see her again, hers was one face that he would never forget. And he had grown up so much. He wanted to tell him about reading about him in the papers, knowing about the torture he had been through, how proud he was of what he had done – but all that came out after he greeted his son was "You've grown."

He couldn't look at him much longer though. Not when he saw Trisha so clearly in his face. "I spoke with Pinako." She told me how brave you've been. How much of a genius you are. "You tried Human Transmutation."

Hohenheim noticed out of the corner of his eye Ed tensing and looking away. "What makes you think you can show up like this? There's nothing left for you here anymore!"

How could he say that? This was the only place there was anything left for him. Pinako, Trisha, the boys… maybe he meant the house?

… his son hadn't burned down the house so that he wouldn't come back, had he? To be honest, he wouldn't put it past the boy. It seemed exactly like something he would have done when he was his age.

"I noticed," he said diplomatically. Then, because he had to make sure, "Tell me Edward. What possessed you to burn down my home?"

"After what happened we vowed to never look back." Ed closed his eyes and looked away. All of a sudden it made sense. "We did it as a symbol of our resolve.

"No you didn't." Edward started, but Hohenheim barely recognized it, still staring at the house. So many years… so many memories… Too many memories. It was just like how he avoided the ruins of Xerxes like his life depended on it. "You were hiding the memory. You didn't want to be reminded of what you'd done."

He moved forward, some vague notion of maybe pulling him into a hug? He dismissed the idea almost right away though. Edward was holding his ground like he was being attacked… if Hohenheim went to pull him into a hug he very well think he actually was being attacked and attack back. "And thought you could erase the memory by destroying the evidence."

He stared at him with something akin to horror. "… You're wrong!" he shouted.

"It's just like a child who hides the sheets after he wets the bed." Ed had actually never been one much to wet the bed. Alphonse either, probably because he would get Ed to help him go to the bathroom all the time. "You ran away and you know it."

Ed stared at him, and Hohenheim got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had messed things up again hadn't he?

"… YOU DON'T KNOW A DAMN THING." The boy turned on his heel and began marching away snarling, "You make me sick to my stomach," under his breath.

This was one of many reasons why he had been terrified when Trisha told him she was pregnant. Because he knew something like this would happen. Ed's reaction was only confirmation of what he knew the moment Trisha placed the grumpy looking baby in his arms. "He's exactly like I was when I was his age."

He turned around. "Well Trisha, that did not go like it should have… I don't think he's going to listen to me whatever I have to say…"

Almost as if Trisha was whispering in his ear, the thought occurred to him: "So don't tell him anything."

It would have to be indirect somehow. But that was exactly the problem. How? And what? Pinako was sure to ask more questions about how had hadn't changed, he could finally tell her the story. But would he really have the courage for that? Telling Trisha had been about the most difficult thing he had ever brought himself to do. Pinako was his oldest living friend, he didn't want to risk ruining that friendship.

And there was no chance that Ed would be listening in anyway. He would probably think he was lying even if he did. If it wasn't his own life, he probably wouldn't have believed it either.

"What am I supposed to do, Trisha?"

There was, understandably, no response.

Animals had never liked Hohenheim. Even before Dwarf in the Flask, Homunculus, he hadn't had the best relationship with pets seeing that the Master's cats would shed fur all over the place that was nearly impossible to clean up. Afterwards though, there wasn't a single animal that completely trusted him.

Den was certainly no exception. And that was a good thing, he supposed. It meant that if any homunculus ever came calling here Den wouldn't let them by.

"You haven't changed in the slightest, all these years," Pianko said, catching his attention. She was flipping through a photo album, revealing where all the photos that weren't on the board anymore were. "And you look exactly the same."

Was this that opportunity he was looking for? He couldn't even be sure that Ed was listening, so really was there any point in alienating one of his only constant friends, right?

He took a drink rather than make a decision.

"Where have you been all this time?" she asked, more or less making the decision for him. Well he could still tell her the truth about where he had been, but... "Why didn't you come back sooner? Trisha was waiting for you until the very end."

He had to fight the urge to flinch when she said it. Of course she did. She had said she was going to. And as painful as it was to hear, he was glad to know that she had.

Then Den walked away towards the hallway.

Edward.

"Pianko."

She made an acknowledging noise and Hohenheim almost wanted to take another drink to strengthen his nerves. Instead he had to settle with hardening his gaze. He had one chance to tell Ed the most important part of all of the information and wisdom he could give him… And there was only one thing on his mind.

"The life form that my sons transmuted. Are you positive that it was Trisha?"

Pianko looked surprised, cocking her head to the side and closing her eyes "Well I wouldn't… it didn't even look human, so I wouldn't say it was—"

"No, that's not what I'm asking." He adjusted his glasses. He couldn't say anything directly or Ed wouldn't pay attention. If Ed was anything like him, which he knew he was, all he had to do was plant the seed of doubt in him and Ed would follow it through to the truth. And he had to know the truth. Burning the house down hadn't allowed them to move forward without looking back... but hopefully this would. "Did you notice the eye color? Or the hair color?"

Pinako frowned and leaned forward. "What are you trying to get at?" He only continued to stare at her. The truth had to come out. "Are you telling me that that wasn't even Trisha?"

As hard as it was to hear, no matter how much it might torment him or… cheapen everything they had been through… Ed had to know. They had to know.

"For all those boys sacrificed, you're saying that wasn't even their mother?"

He didn't have to answer that question.

The dead were impossible to bring back. And there were no negotiations.

He left the next morning knowing that there was more or less nothing else he could do. Edward refused to listen to him on principle and there was only so much information he could try to drop like he had last night before Ed would begin to pick up on it.

He had given him the most important information.

And as he took off down the road, the picture of his family heavy in his pocket, he knew one fact for sure. No matter how the Promised Day ended, he would not be coming back to Pianko or her stew again.

He would do right by his sons, the best that he could, which at this point meant giving everything to make sure Father fell.

And everything was what he would give.

I hope this final chapter wasn't a let down. Thank you so much for all of the love and support for this story! It has become so much more popular than I even thought it would be, so thank you so much and please review!