#trishenheim

That’s Al’s voice. Al shouldn’t be here either. 

I can’t wake up, darlings. I’m dead. I’ve been dead for years now. I’ve moved on. What are you doing here?

“Mom!”

Trisha opens her eyes to darkness and cold and a dull ache spreading through every limb. It almost feels like she’s never used her body before. 

“Mom!”

Ed and Al’s voices are no longer so far away. They’re right beside her, and their arms around her are almost scalding in their heat. 

“Ed? Al? What’s going on?”

“It worked! We brought you back!”

Trisha’s eyes get used to the darkness and she realises where she is. She’s in the basement, where Van used to store all of the junk he’d accumulated over his long, long life. The suit of armour is still standing stoic in the corner, watching over them as the boys cling to her for dear life. It’s freezing down here, and Trisha’s not wearing anything, but the boys have wrapped her in a blanket. 

She was dead. She was very definitely dead. 

She looks around at the chalk on the floor, the remains of the intricate transmutation circle that they are all in the middle of. 

“Oh boys… What did you do?”

Trisha is no expert when it comes to alchemy, but she knows that human transmutation is the one thing that they should never attempt, the one taboo that they should never break. Even Van, with his vast, unknowable skill in it, would never try this. The cost, the equivalent exchange… Trisha dreads to think what would have happened if something had gone wrong and there had been a rebound. 

She pushes it to the back of her mind as Ed and Al help her off the floor. She’s back. It’s been a long time; she can see how much the boys have grown and she wonders just how much time has passed, but it doesn’t matter. She has a second chance now. She can keep her promise to Van, and more importantly, more immediately, she has more time with her precious babies. 

Something still doesn’t feel quite right, but she chooses not to dwell on it too much as the feeling of ravenous hunger starts to overwhelm everything else. 

X

It quickly becomes clear that when they decided to bring Mom back, they really didn’t think through all of the implications that doing so would bring if they were successful. 

Human transmutation is forbidden, and they said that they would keep it their secret. The trouble is, they can’t exactly keep Mom a secret now that she’s back. If it had only been a couple of weeks, perhaps, but it’s been six years since she died. She was buried, people came to her funeral, her death is registered at the registry in Resembool and copied down on record in Eastern City. 

Her suddenly appearing in the world again is going to raise a few questions. Still, it’s nothing that Ed can’t handle. They live far enough away from the village that they’re not likely to get people finding her in passing, and all they have to do is make sure she doesn’t leave the house. Mom understands implicitly without questioning them. She knows as well as they do that what they have done is forbidden, but she doesn’t chastise them for it. She’s grateful to be back with them. 

Pinako sums it up best when she comes over to check on them like she always does, regular as clockwork, and although Ed does his best to head her off at the pass with hasty excuses of ‘we’re fine, we’re fine, there’s no need to worry’, he knows that’s the worst way of making someone not worry ever, and Pinako simply sidesteps past him on the lane and continues to march up the path and into the house. Ed rushes after her, and she stops in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at Trisha. 

“Hello, Pinako.”

“Oh boys,” Pinako says softly. “Oh, what have you done, you idiots?”

Still, she doesn’t shout at them. Pinako’s never been shy of telling them exactly what she thinks of all their madcap schemes whenever they have them, but she doesn’t tell them off for this. This is something so big, and something that’s done and over and can’t and won’t be repeated. There’s no point in it. They just have to live with it now, and so Pinako and Winry are let in on their massive secret, and work to help keep it as secret as possible. 

The other problem that Ed cannot deny is that despite their best efforts, it’s clear that something must have gone wrong during the transmutation. He knows that Al can see it too. There’s something about Mom that’s just not quite right. Her skin is always so very cold, as cold as it was when she was dying, and she always exclaims that they are very hot to the touch. It’s a cruel irony in a way. They brought her back because they wanted to hug her again and feel her arms around them, but it’s not the same as it was before, not when she’s so horribly, deathly cold. 

Then there’s the strange smell. It’s almost like decay, the faint odour of rot that permeates the house now. Ed knows that they built Mom a brand new body, transmuting it from base chemicals. This isn’t her original body rotting under the ground in the cemetery, so why is that smell hanging around? 

The final clue that something went wrong is the moments where Mom isn’t really… Mom. She’ll just vanish, her eyes going blank as if there’s no soul behind them. It’s frightening. 

It’s only a couple of weeks after they first get Mom back that it happens, the irrefutable proof that there’s a part of her that isn’t really Mom anymore. Farmer Anderson, whose fields back onto the Elric land, comes over first thing in the morning asking if they heard anything last night because two of his sheep were attacked and killed in the night, by something with too much strength to be a stray dog. 

Perplexed, Ed disclaims all knowledge, but then Al is shouting for him from the basement and he has to rush away.

Mom is in the basement with Al. She’s covered in blood and tufts of wool, and the horror in her eyes is heartbreaking. 

“Boys, what’s happening to me?”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Ed hugs her. “I’m sorry. We brought you back wrong.”

“It’s ok. It’s ok, my darlings. I’m just scared that I’ll hurt you two.”

Ed thinks of those moments where she’s blank and not there, and suddenly, he’s scared too. He pulls his mind away from those thoughts. 

“You won’t,” he says decisively. “We’ll make sure you won’t.”

X

It’s a very strange routine that they settle into after that, but it’s a routine nonetheless. 

Mom’s ‘episodes’, as Ed euphemistically refers to them, eventually start to become more frequent, and Al dreads to think how many of Farmer Anderson’s sheep have been sacrificed to Mom’s inhuman hunger. She never hurts them, perhaps she retains enough of herself in her primal state to recognise them even when she’s not all there, but it’s been touch and go with her trying to attack Pinako sometimes, to the point where she apologetically forbids Winry from coming over to the Elric house anymore, just in case. 

The smell of decay is a constant presence in the house now, so much so that Al no longer notices it, and it’s only when he finds Mom in the kitchen staring down at the two rotten fingers that have just fallen off her hand that he realises what it really means. 

Still, they’re able to fix her up with medical alchemy whenever bits of her do start to die off, and life continues as it did before. For the most part, they’re content. Mom is herself for most of the time, even if she is cold and decaying slightly, and they can handle her when she’s not herself. She generally knows when she’s ‘fading out’ as she calls it, with about thirty seconds’ warning, and as much as it breaks his heart to do it, Al locks her in the closet under the stairs until she’s back to normal. 

One evening, when Mom is sleeping off one of her raging, inhuman hunger fits, Al voices a thought to Ed. It’s four years since that fateful day when they brought her back, and the question has been eating at him for all that time. 

“Ed… Do you think we did the right thing?”

For a long time, Ed just stares into the middle distance.

“I don’t know,” he admits eventually. “I really don’t know.”

X

It’s a perfectly ordinary day when Trisha sees an extraordinary sight out of the kitchen window where she’s washing the dishes.

“Van.”

“What?” Ed startles up out of his seat and rushes over to the window, but Trisha ignores Al and Pinako telling her to stay where she is, and she rushes out of the kitchen, throwing the front door open and hurrying down the path towards Van. He asked her to wait, and wait she did. Not even death could stop her. 

Ok, it stopped her for a while, and she’s still not quite right, but she’s here, and he’s here, and everything’s going to be ok now. 

Van was never much of a smiler, but he’s positively grinning as he puts his suitcase down and opens his arms for her.

“Trisha.”

He’s so warm, hotter than everyone else is to the point where holding him is almost uncomfortable, but Trisha doesn’t want to let go of him. He’s back, despite everyone’s cynicism. He’s back at last.

“Trisha, you’re freezing. Are you all right?”

She nods against his neck. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine now you’re here.”

“Are you sure?” He pulls back a fraction, his brow furrowed, golden eyes worried behind his glasses. “Trisha, something’s wrong, sweetheart, what is it?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Trisha says firmly, but she can tell from the little wrinkle of his nose that he’s caught the smell of decay that follows her around almost constantly now. 

Speaking of smells though… Did Van always smell this good? On the face of it, Trisha knows that he shouldn’t smell good. She can smell the travel on him, smell that he hasn’t bathed for a few days. But there’s something else. Something wholly delicious. She cuddles in close again, breathing him in, and he strokes her hair. 

“Oh Trisha,” he whispers. “What happened to you?”

He smells so, so good…

X

“What. Did. You. Do.”

Al never thought that he would ever be in this situation, but then again, it’s a very specific situation so he thinks he can be forgiven for not being prepared. It’s not every day you have to pull your resurrected mother off your ten-years-vanished-and-only-just-returned father when she tries to tear his throat out with her teeth because she’s peckish and only living flesh will do, and now you’re watching your extremely angry father and even angrier brother have an argument whilst standing guard outside the cupboard that your mother is locked in. 

And that’s not even taking into account the fact that the weird stories your mother’s been telling you about your father being a living Philosopher’s Stone and functionally immortal are all true, because despite the blood soaking the front of his shirt, Dad is completely fine for having a large chunk of his neck taken out. 

“We did what we had to do!” Ed yells. “Mom died! She was dead, and you were who knows where, so we did what any half-orphaned, half-abandoned kids would do and we brought her back!”

“There’s a reason it’s forbidden, Edward.”

“Well, maybe if you’d been here, you could have told us that at the time! You left us alone! You have no right to lecture us about breaking the taboo! You do not have the moral high ground here!”

Dad doesn’t reply for a long time. 

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, and Ed actually takes a step back in surprise, having been ready to launch into another tirade and clearly not expecting the apology. “I’m sorry that you were alone for so long and that this was the only solace you had, and I’m sorry that Trisha never got the chance to tell you what was going on and why I left before she died. I can’t change what’s done, but perhaps I can try to begin making things better now.”

Ed is breathing heavily, about to explode from the emotion, and since Mom is quiet in the cupboard now, Al chances to take a couple of steps forward to get between the two of them in case Ed decides to just resort to punching Dad in the face, which Al is pretty sure he would have done already if it wasn’t for the ravenous Mom and profuse bleeding and alchemical healing going on before he had the chance. 

“We don’t need your help,” Ed growls eventually, hands balled up into fists but showing no signs of actually swinging. “We got on perfectly fine without you for ten years, so just go back wherever you’ve been hiding and don’t bother us again.”

“No, you probably don’t need me,” Dad agrees quietly. “I know I don’t have much right to try and insert myself back into your lives as if I’d never left. I don’t expect to. But it’s not just you two. I came back for Trisha as well.”

They’ve been talking about her as if she’s not there, but she’s only a few steps away behind the cupboard door, and Al can see the guilt in Ed’s eyes as he glances over. They can’t leave Mom out of this. They’ve had to make a lot of decisions on her behalf over the last few years, but this isn’t one of them. Mom has always believed in Dad. She’s always waited for him and she’s always known that he was coming back, and in the end, he kept that promise to her. It took a long time, but he did come back, just as he told her he would. 

And as much as they have always tried to deny it and pretend that everything’s good, because a not-quite-right Mom was better than no Mom at all, the fact remains that when they brought Mom back, they brought her back wrong, and maybe Dad, with his centuries of knowledge and Philosopher’s Stone’s worth of power, can make her right again. 

X

“Her soul hasn’t bound to her body properly. That’s what’s making her black out and resort to a primal state, and it’s why her body is rotting. The body will decay without a soul in it. Her soul is still partially trapped beyond the gate, and it’s trying to get back there.”

Mom is tucked up in bed, still asleep from her last episode. Hohenheim has just fixed up the latest patch of decay on her chest. 

Ed notes the lack of blame in Hohenheim’s words. It would have been easy for him to say you didn’t bind her soul properly, but he doesn’t. 

“Can we fix it?” Al asks. 

“No.” The single word is sharp and blunt. “No. There’s nothing you and Ed can do. There’s a huge price to pay. The equivalent exchange for a human life is too much for either of you to bear and I won’t lose you. I can try and fix it.”

“What do you mean, try?” Ed hates how small and young his voice sounds. “Can you fix it or not?”

Hohenheim dodges the question. “When you first brought her back, what did you use for the exchange?”

Ed reels off the chemical components of the human body; he’s had them down rote for years now.

“And a drop of blood from both of us to anchor the soul,” Al adds once he’s done. 

Hohenheim nods, his eyes still on Mom. 

“It wasn’t enough,” he says. “Human transmutation requires a much greater sacrifice. A life for a life, a soul for a soul. Sometimes more than that. Often, not even that is enough and the transmutation will fail no matter what is sacrificed.”

Having heard the story of his immortality now, Ed has to give him that, and not even grudgingly. All things considered, he and Al got off extremely lightly, and the guilt that Mom is suffering now as a result eats away at him a little bit more.

“Can you fix it?” he asks again. 

“I can try. I should be able to provide the exchange with the souls, and they’re willing to make that sacrifice for Trisha.” He smiles. “They always loved her. She won them all over in the end.”

“But…” Ed prompts. That makes it sound way too easy. 

“But ultimately, it’s up to Trisha whether her soul returns or stays beyond the gate. You can’t force someone to come back to life if they don’t want to.”

Ed hadn’t thought about it like that. He had always assumed that Mom would want to come back. She died before her time and now they’ve given her more time with her family, they’ve allowed her to be there for when Hohenheim got back, just as she promised she would be. But then again, he’s never thought about what happens after death, beyond the gate as Hohenheim called it. Her soul had been somewhere, and if all the accounts of heaven and the afterlife are to be believed, then it was a nice, peaceful place that perhaps she might not have wanted to leave after all. 

He doesn’t want to think about it. 

X

Trisha can taste blood in her mouth again when she wakes up. The boys are always so good about cleaning her up when she has one of her episodes, but they can’t really brush her teeth easily when she’s out of it. 

“Hey, Trisha.” 

A gentle hand strokes her hair and she looks to the side to see Van lying on the bed beside her. 

“Did I hurt you?”

Van shakes his head. “No damage done.” He presses a kiss to her forehead and Trisha is reminded once again of the blood in her mouth, getting up to brush her teeth. She looks at herself in the mirror above the sink, taking in her blue-ish tinted skin and lips, and her eyes several shades darker than they always used to be back when she’d been alive the first time. She’s amazed that Van can even recognise her now, but he’s still looking at her as if she’s the sun and the moon and the stars all rolled into one. He doesn’t care that she’s a little bit wrong, but at the same time, it breaks her heart just a bit. 

She returns to the bedroom, hovering in the doorway. 

“Van?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I’m not… fully me. I wanted to be here when you got back, but I don’t think that all of me is here.”

“I know.” Van comes over and takes her in his arms, and Trisha wishes she could stay there forever and not have to worry about anything else. “I know. I think I can make you whole again. I think I know how to give you the chance to fix yourself.”

Trisha nods. “Thank you.” There’s a long pause. “You’re going to use the souls, aren’t you?”

“Yes. They’ve talked it through. They’re happy to help make you whole.”

“Thank you.” She whispers against his chest, hoping that the souls can hear her. “Thank you, all of you.”

“They say you’re welcome.”

Trisha closes her eyes, trying to lose herself in his embrace. 

“Will it hurt?”

“No, my love. I promise.” He holds her a little tighter before letting go. “Come on. Let’s get you fixed.”

Van takes her down into the basement. The boys are there too, drawing out a complex circle on the floor in chalk. Trisha shivers. She doesn’t like it down here, it brings back too many bad memories of waking up after a black out episode with no memory of what she did or who she might have hurt, the taste of blood in her mouth making her feel sick. Nonetheless, she accepts that what Van is about to do is not something that should be done anywhere that people might witness it by accident. 

Van gives the circle a onceover and proclaims it perfect with soft pride in his voice. Trisha knows that human transmutation is the one thing he would never do, and whilst he might be mad at the boys for doing what they did, he can’t help but admire their craftsmanship when they did it.

She steps into the centre of the circle with him.

“Van, I’m scared.”

“It’s ok, love. I’m right here. It’ll all be ok.”

He takes her in his arms and she closes her eyes, burying her face in against his shoulder. Even then, she can still see the flash of red alchemic lightning race around the edge of the circle. 

Everything is bright white and jumbled, her mind feeling like it’s tearing itself apart and putting itself back together again over and over at the speed of light. It doesn’t hurt, just as Van promised, but it’s disorientating and frightening and it makes her feel dizzy. She can still feel Van’s arms around her but she feels totally alone and adrift at the same time. 

Finally the sensation stops. Everything is still bright white, but Van is definitely real and solid and her mind has reordered itself again. 

Trisha chances to open her eyes. Everything is very white, apart from the ominous looming gate floating in front of them. 

Although she doesn’t remember ever seeing it before, Trisha knows that she’s been here before. She’s been beyond that gate. She remembers that nebulous time before the boys brought her back. It was calm, and warm, and peaceful, and she was enjoying it. She didn’t have to worry about anything. She could just wait for Van and the boys to join her, however long that took, and she knew that everything would be all right in the end. 

Trisha is incredibly grateful for the extra time she’s had with her sons but now that she’s back here, within touching distance of that wonderfully peaceful afterlife with nothing to worry about, she realises just how much she missed it. 

“Trisha. You’re back again already? And you too, Hohenheim. We didn’t really get a chance to speak the last time you were here. You were screaming a bit too much.”

Trisha turns to the source of the voice. It’s just an outline, a silhouette, strange and amorphous and shifting, sometimes appearing female, sometimes male, mirroring first her and then Van as if it can’t make its mind up. 

“I’ve come to pay the toll for Trisha’s soul,” Van says levelly. 

“Of course, the living Philosopher’s Stone.” The outline smiles, unnerving teeth in the middle of a featureless face. “Well, if you’re willing to sacrifice those souls, I’ll take them. It’s not your choice to make though. It’s Trisha’s soul you want to anchor, after all.”

The thing turns to Trisha. 

“It’s up to you. Where would you like to stay?”

X

The lightning is still blazing around the circle, the powerful red lightning of a Philosopher’s Stone, something unlike Ed and Al have ever seen, and Al is starting to get just a little bit worried. It didn’t take this long when they brought Mom back the first time. It feels like Mom and Dad have been gone forever. He looks over at Ed.

“Something’s wrong. It’s taking too long.”

Ed shakes his head, but his expression looks just as worried as Al feels.

“It’ll be ok. Mom has to make the decision after all. It’s a pretty big one.”

Al supposes he has to accept that, but at the same time, he can’t help wondering what will happen if Mom decides not to come back. 

She’s always been happy to be back with them, to have more time with them and the potential for more time with Dad. But Al can’t deny that her second life hasn’t been easy for any of them, and even if she comes back complete with her soul fully bonded and she won’t be affected by her primal hunger anymore, it’s still not going to be easy. It’s still not going to be much of a life, stuck in the house all day because no one else can know what they did. And what if Dad’s internal Stone doesn’t have enough power to bring her back after all? What if they lose both of them?

Suddenly, the alchemic light is gone, the electric lightbulb is blown out from the power, and Al can’t see a thing. He hears a rather ominous thud though. 

“Mom? Dad?” 

X

“Hey Mom.” 

Ed pats her headstone and sets the flowers down in front of it. It took him a long time to come to terms with what happened and to accept her decision. He still remembers the flood of bitter recriminations that had come out of his mouth when they’d realised that Dad had come back from the gate without Mom, and he remembers Dad not taking any of it in because he’d only had Mom back for a few hours before he lost her again.

“She said that she was sorry not to come back and have more time with you, but that this is the best way for everyone. She wants you to be able to move on from it all. She’ll see us all when we get there. She loves you both so much. So, so much.”

“We’re ok.” He settles on the ground in front of the stone. “Dad and his motley crew of tame alchemists managed to save the world. I like to think they couldn’t have done it without us though.” In the back of his mind, he hears Mom’s laughter. “And we think he’s mortal again; he’s started going grey. We don’t know if he’s actually noticed that or not.”

There’s a long pause. 

“I understand why you did it,” Ed says eventually. “I didn’t, for a long time. I was so angry. I thought that you’d abandoned us like Dad did. Except that was more complicated than we always thought, and I know that your choice was more complicated too. You would always have been a reminder that we broke the taboo, and even though I know you never complained about it, I know it must have been hard for you to have to be kept secret all the time. None of us had any idea if it would have worked properly.  It wasn’t worth that risk. It wasn’t worth that pain. I’m sure that you’re happy wherever you are.”

He gives the stone a final pat. “I love you, Mom.”

X

In the quiet peace beyond the gate, Trisha Elric smiles.

Trisha sighs and lets Sarah pull her away to the other side of the bonfire, away from temptation. She’s not sure what her parents would have said about her having a crush on a very much older man, but Hohenheim is well-liked and respectable enough, and it’s common knowledge in the town that he’s never shown any kind of romantic interest in anyone for all the time that he’s been there, with some people getting to the stage of wondering if it’s a side effect of the immortality. 

When Sarah’s not looking, she peers around the edge of the circle to take another glance at him. Trisha’s sure that even Sarah, if pushed, couldn’t deny that he’s handsome. Tall and well-built, golden hair and eyes shining in the firelight. He doesn’t smile often, but when he does, it lights up his whole face and he no longer looks like he’s carrying every one of those four hundred years around with him.

Trisha decides to seize her opportunity when the dancing begins again. Sarah is up and twirling around the fire with Yuriy so she’s no longer chaperoning, and Trisha gets up, making her way back around the bonfire towards Hohenheim. He’s talking to Pinako and another of the pub regulars, and for a moment, it gives her pause. Those are people he’s known closely for a long time and although none of them can match him in age, they’re certainly a lot closer than she is. Maybe he’ll just see her as a precocious kid.

She pushes on. Nothing chanced, nothing gained, and there’s nothing to be hurt except her pride if he rejects her. She strolls over to the group and stops in front of Hohenheim, holding out her hand and giving a little curtsey. 

“May I have this dance?”

For a long time, Hohenheim just stares at her, looking a little bit like a startled rabbit, his eyes wide behind his glasses. 

“Sorry?”

“Will you dance with me?”

“Erm.”

Pinako rolls her eyes and shoves her elbow into Hohenheim’s ribs before grabbing his tankard out of his hands. “Hohenheim, a very pretty lady has just asked you to dance with her. If you don’t take this chance you might never get another.”

She nudges him again, and this time Hohenheim gets up, taking Trisha’s hand. The music is fast, almost a polka, and he hangs back a little as Trisha leads him over to join the whirling couples weaving their way around the bonfire. 

“I think you ought to know that I can’t dance,” he says.

“That’s ok. I’ll lead.” She positions his hand, large and warm, on her waist and grabs his shoulder, careening into the fray with him and pulling him along. Trisha’s used to leading; she taught Sarah how to dance that way so that she could show off her steps for Yuriy. Hohenheim manages to keep up with her, and she manages to stop them colliding with anyone else. Not that anyone would mind if there was a collision; it’s that sort of an informal event and half the people are three sheets to the wind anyway. 

(Trisha privately wonders if immortals can get drunk, but thinks it wouldn’t be polite to ask the question. Instead she voices a different thought which is probably no less impolite, in hindsight.)

“How can you have been around for centuries and never learned to dance?”

“I don’t know.” He sounds so sweetly helpless and ever so slightly terrified as she continues to gallop him around the fire. 

“Maybe you just never had the right partner.” It’s not subtle. Sarah told her to be subtle. But this is Hohenheim, and Trisha really doesn’t think that subtle is going to be the right technique with him. Besides, Trisha has never been the subtle type. She’s got about as much subtlety as a brick. 

The fast music gradually comes to a close, with most of the couples making their way back to the edges of the fire clearing to rest their feet. It’s only a few diehards that stay waiting for the next tune, and Trisha makes no move to release Hohenheim.

Not that he’s showing any signs of wanting to be released, though.

After a brief pause for the band to get their breath back, the music begins again, a slow and lilting waltz. 

Hohenheim just looks down at Trisha.

“I will stand on your feet,” he says. “Please save yourself.”

Trisha shakes her head, starting to guide him through the steps. He does indeed get her feet a couple of times, but Trisha doesn’t mind. She might only get one shot at this, so she’s going to make the most of it whilst she’s got it and enjoy the closeness whilst she can. He’s warm, and solid, and he smells nice and looks lovely, and she’s got five minutes in his arms right now. 

When the tune comes to an end, just a little too soon for Trisha’s liking, she decides not to push her luck, and she takes him back to the safety of Pinako, finding that she’s too late for the older woman not to have knocked back the remainder of Hohenheim’s beer. He laments this as he sits down again, and Trisha just laughs, taking a chance and leaning in to press a soft kiss against his whiskered cheek. 

“Thank you.”

He looks at her, startled by the affection. 

“Yes,” he says eventually. “Thank you.”

Next to him, unseen, Pinako rolls her eyes, muttering something about the most oblivious man in Amestris.