Paradise Lost, a fullmetal alchemist fanfic

Paradise Lost
Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction

Genre: gen, mystery, family
Characters: Ed, Al, Hohenheim
Rating: PG-13 (T) for brief language, general mindfuck towards the end
Word Count: 5500 or so
Summary: With Hohenheim suddenly resurfaced, Edward restive, and Dante's house quite possibly more of an enigma than the Lady Dante herelf, Alphonse finds himself in a situation that's much more than he bargained for.

Notes: Post-Greed!arc (anime-verse) alternate timeline, which basically means that instead of doing whatever it was they actually did, the Elrics instead elect to stay in Dublith and search through Dante's alchemic journals. Written for dreamer1789 for the March-April round of fma exchange on LJ. The prompt was something to the effect of, "Ed+Al+Hoho, with emphasis on mystery/family genres and psychological introspection."

It rained that day; Mother remembered because there were fresh prints in the mud by the window the next morning, even though Father had said it was nothing to worry about. Adamant, she told him anything that made tracks was something to worry about.

He only smiled good-naturedly, replied: "Then I guess I'd do well to not leave any, mm?"

"Something wrong, Al?"

Yes. "No."

Edward continued to stare at him, waiting for an explanation, or an elaboration, or really, anything. Alphonse returned to his book, pretended to not notice his brother's eyes boring into him. Finally, Edward rolled his eyes, snatched up another book from the stack between them and skulked back to the high-backed armchair on the other side of the study. "You know, it's not even me this time, Al. Most of the time it is, I know. But I don't even know what the hell this is about! And we really don't need this, right now. Come on."

It is completely you, Brother! Alphonse screamed inwardly.

Something had happened that day, when Edward had tailed Greed to Dante's mansion, and Alphonse had stayed behind with—

Marta. He brought one hand to his breastplate and slid his glove-fingers across it gingerly. The memory made Al want to drop his books and rush outside, surround himself with the trees and the grass and the sky. He could never tell Edward this, though—not so much because he was Edward, but because Edward was just another person, and this hurt was so internalized, personal, that Alphonse really didn't think he could tell anybody.

Still, it hurt to think of Edward as 'just another person', because prior to this moment, Alphonse had never considered a time where it might be true. They were brothers, damn it, they were family—they did not keep secrets from each other.

"Whoever the hell was writing these was a total whackjob. Here in the margin, it says 'it's better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven'. Who writes that kind of thing in an alchemic journal?" Now Edward was looking for things at which to lash out.

Something had him on edge, and he wasn't going to enlighten Alphonse as to what. Not because Edward didn't trust him—that would be absurd. Edward didn't trust the rest of their living family, was all.

"Al! How are was supposed to take him seriously, much less trust him?" Edward shouted, at once translating the sullen look Alphonse sent him. "The guy is missing for a decade, and then shows up at this house like it's nothing out of the ordinary? And he acts like he thinks he can pick up where he left off, and be 'Dad' now! You can't think that's normal, Al. We've seen stranger things, sure, but there is no way in hell that's normal."

As if on cue, Hohenheim materialized in the study doorway, holding a tray—laden with two teacups and a spindly, fragile-looking tea kettle—in supplication. "I brought you two some tea," he said, as though his offering had not been self-evident. Edward's gaze flickered momentarily from his book and up towards the doorway, but he only scowled and waved his hand in dismissal.

"Don't want it."

Ignoring Edward, Hohenheim sat the tray down on the nearest stack of alchemic journals and leaned against the head of Edward's chair, peering down at him. "Mmm, I see. I don't much like the stuff, either. You're certainly my son!"

Alphonse sighed. Predictably, Edward snatched up the tea cup with reckless fury. "I never said I didn't like it! It's just that we're busy in here! So go make yourself useful and discover more fun things in Dante's kitchen or something!"

Alphonse watched as his brother downed cup after cup of steaming tea. If people kept records for these kinds of things, Brother would have beaten them all. "Dad's an alchemist too, you know. He could—"

"We got along just fine without his help all this time," Edward interjected, voice low and deadly. It was as though he was pretending Hohenheim was not even in the room with them. "We don't need it now."

The hint of a smile graced Hohenheim's features, but he only shrugged. "Of course you don't." Then he retired back into the kitchen, as per Edward's orders. From the look of it, this served only to further deepen Edward's foul mood.

"I hate how he treats us like kids like that! Thinking he's so coy and clever!" Edward muttered.

"Well," Alphonse started, knowing almost immediately that he was going to regret this. "You are acting like a child right now, Brother."

Edward snapped his book shut and reached for another one. "You know what, Al? Just shut up and do some research. We've got four more libraries of this shit left."

That hurt. And Edward knew it, too; almost instantly, he let out a deep breath and straightened up in the armchair he occupied. "Sorry," he muttered, before slipping into contrite silence.

Alphonse sighed, in wordless acceptance of the apology. But after a week of this kind of secretive, on-edge attitude, even his patience was running dry. He couldn't help but scratch at the wound—maybe if everything boiled over he'd actually get some acceptable answers for once. "What are we even looking for, Brother?"

Edward stiffened visibly. He snapped, "What do you think we're looking for, Al? Information on the Philosopher's Stone! Maybe you can't recall, but we've kind of been looking for the same damn thing for the past five years! But I can see how you might have missed that."

That actually hurt a bit, too, but Alphonse let it go. "That's not what you're looking for." It was true: Though the journals were largely untitled and nondescript, every time Alphonse had looked in Edward's direction, he had seen the tell-tale arrays, diagrams, theorems—of human transmutation. Alphonse couldn't exactly place the why, but he felt the uneasy inklings of betrayal welling up inside him. They hadn't given up the Stone, but certainly they'd given up on making it; they'd promised. And older still was their promise to each other they would not attempt human transmutation again. So what was to be gained from looking over that research…?

"You remember what Envy said back in Lab 5," Edward began. And actually, Al didn't—he hadn't exactly been paying attention to what Envy said at the time; he was too busy concentrating on what Envy might do. "Homunculi were born through the power of the Philosopher's Stone. It gave them life. Which means that someone had to have either made a Stone, or found it. In any case, they used it—those homunculi are proof of that. All of Dante's journals past a certain point deal exclusively with homunculi—er." He stopped. "With allowances for the occasional religious philosophy crap.

"Anyway, I don't think the old lady was responsible for this. At least not on her own. And obviously Hohenheim knows her from somewhere, or else he wouldn't know where her house was. It's not like he stumbled upon it by accident. Doesn't that seem a little suspicious to you?"

So that's what this was all about, then. Further criminalizing Father. Alphonse wanted to scream—their record of actions wasn't exactly pristine and rosy, but that didn't make them bad people. Why couldn't Edward extend that to Father, even for a minute? But they'd already had that discussion—more than once, for that matter—and Alphonse couldn't find any words that could convince Edward to do so, and probably never would. Instead, he kept the conversation on Edward's own 'crimes'. "Homunculi aren't people, Brother. They're monsters. How can they really be alive when—"

"They're not monsters, Al!" Edward cut in. Then, quietly, he added, "Not entirely."

"Then what made you change your mind? That time, with Scar, I saw M—" Alphonse stopped.

This is what made it so hard.

They couldn't talk about anything, because ever other subject was taboo. Because Edward didn't trust him with anything. His current silence was proof enough of that.

The only mystery now was, Why? Maybe there wasn't even a reason—wouldn't that be rich? Stupid Brother isn't making very much sense to begin with. Am I supposed to read his mind or something? Alphonse flipped haphazardly through the pile of journals Edward had handed him. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was all a waste of time—and time, he'd long since decided, shouldn't ever be wasted. It shouldn't be wasted doing research on something so wrong. It shouldn't be wasted running around in circles. It shouldn't be wasted—

…being mad at people.

Alphonse sighed. Why did he have to feel guilty? Edward was the one being mean! As if on cue, Edward stretched, making a low, guttural sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a wheeze and who knew what else.

"Brother?"

Edward craned his neck over the side of the chair and looked back towards Alphonse. "Hi, Al."

"Hi?"

"Man, I'm beat. I'm going to head upstairs and see what's up there." Edward winced slightly as he dredged himself up from the confines of the armchair. He did look exhausted, Alphonse gave him that.

It did not mitigate how incredibly odd their last exchange had been. "Uh. Okay?"

Edward navigated between the stacks of unread journals and made his way to the stairwell, a curvy, ornate affair carved from some sort of dark-hued wood. He sagged on the banister like a broken doll as he made his way up, putting one leaden foot before the other. Alphonse wondered if this blatant show of fatigue was supposed to be some kind of secret coded apology. 'I'm sorry, I'm tired and frustrated and I have no idea what we're supposed to do' would've worked just fine, Alphonse thought, still too bewildered to be particularly bitter.

Stepping over one of the book towers, Alphonse picked up the tea tray and took it back to the kitchen, expecting to find Hohenheim awaiting him there. Finding no one, Alphonse set the tray on the counter by the sink and decided to explore a little.

"Oh!" Almost immediately after turning the corner into the next room, Alphonse came face to face with Hohenheim. "There you are," he said lamely.

Hohenheim blinked up at his youngest son, pushing his eyeglasses further up on the bridge of his nose. "There's some interesting flooring work in that room," he remarked, unprompted. "Cedar."

Alphonse was beginning to wonder if it was the house that made people weird. He'd heard stories of haunted houses; at this point, he honestly wouldn't be surprised.

Hohenheim continued, fingering the curvature of the kitchen cabinets with familiar fondness. "When this house was built, those big trees out there were too young to be made into lumber. Instead, the Lady Dante had wood shipped down from the northern provinces, where she had previously made her home. It's all dark woods there, mahogany and such-like. Like these cabinets, or the banister in the front room out there." Alphonse nodded, though he hoped Hohenheim would launch into a more comprehensible explanation.

Unfortunately, all Hohenheim offered was, "It's really quite interesting. You should take a look."

Alphonse complied. The next room was wider and more open than the rest, with narrow, many-paned windows stretching from floor to ceiling along the entire west wall. Eggplant-like drapes hung at either end of the expanse of windows. Other than that, the room was empty.

Hohenheim was right about the flooring, though. It was almost white in the moonlight—had they really been holed up in the study that long? No wonder Edward was tired—and looked rough to the touch, which meant it was either very new or only temporary flooring. Possibly both.

But the house had been there for ages, if what Hohenheim said about the trees outside was true. That the Lady Dante would suddenly call for a remodel of an unused room was beyond strange. He tapped tentatively on the wood with his heel.

Hollow sound.

Pulling a piece of chalk from the case on his leg, Alphonse knelt down and brushed away the new wood dust from the ground. He imagined the smell of fresh-cut cedarwood, sharp and clean and completely un-reminiscent of the rest of his sad, dank home. He etched out the standard array for reshaping organic material and brought his gloved hands down to the circle. Now, how to go about this quietly?

The light from the transmutation reflected off the windows, and the humming, whirring, whirling noise that accompanied every work of alchemy echoed in the empty room, so loudly that Alphonse was afraid for the scantest moment that Edward would hear him from all the way upstairs and come racing down.

Why he should fear that, he wasn't sure. He had nothing to hide, and Edward shouldn't either.

…Should he?

The light and sound dissipated, leaving Alphonse with only himself, a makeshift cedar staircase, and a wide hole in the middle of an even wider room. His newly created stairwell led down into an empty pocket beneath the house, cluttered with broken floorboards (darkwood) and splinters as long as his arm. Though a thick layer of dust coasted the ground, swirling up like snow flurries every time Alphonse set is boot down, the wood and what else had fallen below when someone re-transmuted the floor was clean.

To Alphonse's mild horror, the 'what else' included what appeared to be a child's femur, the lower jaw of a skull, tiny finger bones. The earlier fingers of betrayal that had been grasping at Alphonse's mind flooded back in shocking intensity, dark tendril-like hands forcing themselves into his eyes, his mouth, his (nonexistent) lungs. Brother?

What had happened here? When? And the ever-unanswerable question—why? Why did he hidethis, whydidn'thetellmewhyaretheresecretswhyiseverythingso—

A screeching, rocking crash from upstairs halted his panic for a split second, before it redoubled and Alphonse could feel the pure crushing weight of terror forced upon him.

Mother held them tight that night, a shudder in her breath that betrayed the fear she told her two boys not to feel. The overhanging light rocked and swayed in the wind that crept beneath the door from outside. Water seeped in too, sometimes.

Father seeped in too, sometimes. He hung his coat on the hook by the door, wringing out his ponytail and his hat alike. "A woman." Mother's voice is devoid of accusation, but not of worry.

"An old friend," was all he offered.

"Put him on the bed, Alphonse. There, right there. No, Alphonse—listen to me."

Alpohonse was trying, really trying. To listen, to process, to help, but there Edward was on the ground surrounded by glass from the (no longer so) great standing mirror, breathing sharp and irregular and what happened what happened what happened?

Edward curled into a fetal position on the bed, halfheartedly waving away all of Alphonse's attempts to help. "Stop, just—just hang on a—fuck." He buried his face in the mattress. "Fuck."

"Alphonse—"

Alphonse swept glass from the floor, and extracted it from the folds of Edward's clothing. He heard the sound of glass things (everything is so very fragile) all the while.

Hohenheim assisted Edward as he retched tea into the toilet, because Alphonse was too large for the water closet. He felt too small for the world.

"We're moving him downstairs. He'll be easier to care for there. Alphonse, I need you to focus. There's no room for panic right now."

Each minute lasted lifetimes. Every hour was over in a heartbeat.

Please don't make me go through this again.

I can't.

Edward slept, albeit fitfully. Alphonse watched the sun rise. Hohenheim watched them both.

Shortly after dawn, Alphonse followed Hohenheim out of Edward's room and into the study. ("A watched pot never boils," said Hohenheim. Alphonse thought this was in very bad taste.)

Hohenheim sunk down into one of the library chairs—the one Edward had occupied only a few hours before. "Your brother's health," he said, finally. He flipped absently through the top journal from the pile in front of him, eyes lingering every so often on the illustrations, fingers tracing lines to the corner of every page. Alphonse waited expectantly.

All he wanted was an answer; any answer. It didn't have to be a favorable one, even (yes it did it did it did). All he wanted was (everything to be okay! But maybe it's too late for that…) to escape confusion, uncertainty.

"How is it?"

What? A split second later, Alphonse realized to his chagrin that Hohenheim's previous statement had not been the beginning of an answer at all, but a question.

"He's fine for now. Dehydrated, perhaps. Fatigued, certainly. But depending on what caused this in the first place, there could be other consequences." All things Alphonse knew already.

Hohenheim didn't have any answers to give.

"He's always been fine, he's been perfect. He's—of course this isn't normal!" Alphonse sputtered, taken aback by the simple idea. "You don't know Brother. Everything has always been—" Okay. Which wasn't even strictly true. But that's what it felt like, and how it should be, and whydothesethingshappenwedon'tneedthisnow—

"Can you get your brother a damp cloth and some hot water? They're both in the kitchen. You can fill the teakettle with the water. Just—be sure to rinse it out, first," Hohenheim cut into the frenzy of Alphonse's panic.

Alphonse nodded, numbly.

Once he had shut the kitchen door behind him, he shouted—whispered, maybe; he couldn't really tell, because everything was so loud compared to the house's silence—"Why am I such an idiot?" Even that sounded boyish and incompetent. I'm better than that.

And yet…everything was so confused, maybe he couldn't be sure. First, there was Edward, who was sick somehow, and there was the empty room with the bones buried under new floorboards—what happened in there, Brother? And there was Hohenheim, who had come in one night out of the dark, commenting only on the sad, haphazard state of the library sitting room, as though he'd been coming in that door, seeing them every night since the beginning of time itself. Something made all of this click, something would make it all make sense—

Hohenheim had shown him the (not so) empty room. Hohenheim had helped him with Edward (or rather, he had helped Hohenheim with Edward). If not for Hohenheim, what would Alphonse have done?

If not for Hohenheim, what would he have not had to do?

He had acted like nothing unexpected had happened upstairs. And Alphonse was sure he had pointed out that room because he knew what was under those floorboards. He had…

"No," Alphonse whispered, gloved hand shaking as its fingers curled around the spindly teapot.

He had served Edward the tea. And Brother drank so much of it! Alphonse glared at the incriminating tea leaves at the bottom of the pot. Poison?

Everything was breaking apart.

Hohenheim had finally come home (albeit not to theirs, in Risenburg. But he had come!), he was helping them, he was there for them, he couldn't possibly be—

Killing them.

(And what of the child skeleton under the floorboards?)

This is the kind of betrayal Edward had suspected all along.

But even now, Alphonse couldn't stomach it. Whether this was because there was still one more missing piece, or because he simply didn't want to believe it, he couldn't tell, didn't really want to know.

"Something the matter?" Hohenheim poked a curious face into the kitchen. Alphonse jumped.

"No! No." Yes! "I was just…trying to sort some things out." Hohenheim might not be the master culprit. Edward had secrets, too, and that didn't make him a bad person. Not unless—child skeleton, centuries dead but newly broken, newly hidden—not unless those secrets were bigger than Alphonse had initially thought.

Alphonse dismissed the thought almost immediately. Maybe it was his fault, somehow. Maybe it was his fault everything had turned out so wrong, and—

"I just wanted to tell you that I was going out to get some charcoal for your brother."

Er…what?

"To flush his digestive system."

…Maybe it was Hohenheim, after all. Why was he so certain the poison had been ingested, or that it was poison at all? Alphonse had guessed as much as well, but…

"Look after your brother," Hohenheim said, before ducking out of the kitchen doorway. Before Alphonse had time to move, however, he was back. "Why did I even ask?" He chuckled. "You and your brother…are very close. You and I, Alphonse. We're the sort who trust our family.

"I'll be back in a few minutes."

Alphonse weakly waved goodbye, all the while feeling two years old. We're the sort who trust our family.

Once Alphonse heard the front door click shut, he crossed the kitchen and turned into the (not at all) empty room. The staircase he had crafted was still there, though Alphonse couldn't imagine why he would have suspected differently. He descended into the hollow beneath the floorboards.

Everyone had secrets. It's just that some were more deadly than others. What Alphonse needed to do was figure out whose was whose.

"You're as lovely as they say; I couldn't tell you that earlier, but truer words have never been spoken. Don't give me that guarded expression; it mars the effect."

And whose voice was what? A woman's. Alphonse's heart leapt at the thought, half anxiety and half some odd, misplaced hope. Because this woman was a stranger, an intruder. Something dangerous. But, if she was with Edward now, then…

(Then Hohenheim had never betrayed him. And neither had Edward.)

The relief he felt was darkened immediately by the sheer stupidity of this. He was glad some woman had crept into Edward's room, when Edward was all but completely defenseless? Because it affirmed what he shouldn't ever have doubted?

He quickened his pace, still careful not to make more noise than was necessary. The space beneath the first room sprawled out under what appeared to be the entirety of the house, and Alphonse followed the muffled voices until he was directly under the room they occupied. Light filtered down from thin spaces between the floorboards, and Alphonse looked up. He could see slivers of the bedroom, the feet of Edward's bed, the hem of a woman's dress.

"I see you killed Greed." Lyra's voice. But spiteful and callous in a way hers had never been.

"He wanted me to kill him." Edward's voice, oddly unsurprised. "You're…Dante. Aren't you."

The woman (Dante? The Lady Dante? But she had died, and she was an old woman and…not Lyra?) continued, without acknowledging the statement. "You crushed the skull of the child he was, so many centuries ago. You forced him to expel the red stones. You watched him shrivel up, contort and collapse into himself. You felt him die. And you're not troubled at all by this? Little Edward is growing up."

"Shut up."

Edward had…done all of that? That was what he'd been hiding? Alphonse felt the child's (Greed's?) bones crush beneath his feet. He put a gloved hand to his breastplate, and felt Marta dying at the exact moment Greed had died. He felt Edward hurting, in addition to his own pain. And he felt Dante (LYRA?) cutting deeper, even now. Even now!

"I suppose he meant to die, so that you could unlock the secret of the homunculi, and…defeat me? If there is anything to be defeated, here. I am only me, after all."

Edward coughed. "You're…not even that. That's not your body. If…"

"It's the soul that makes the body, Edward. Your brother's body, it's that hunk of scrap metal; that's what you say. He's human, even when his body wasn't his at birth. This is my body, and I am human, too. Isn't that right?"

Things fell into place with a sickening lurch. Dante, in Lyra.

"You know… I always imagined things like this would take place somewhere… a hell of a lot more sinister." His tone is off-hand, cavalier—classic Edward. But it is tired, more so even that it had been when Alphonse began eavesdropping. So tired.

"Edward, my dear, you know better than most how sinister familiarity can be."

Father is gone, and Mother is going. The doctor has disallowed solid foods, so delicate are her stomach and her throat. She drinks only tea, supplied by an old woman—a Miss D—who is visiting her family up north, and has stopped in Risenburg to recover her strength.

Mother doesn't like her, but she accepts the gift of tea with the grace of someone not long for this world.

Big and Little Brothers have never met Miss D. But they don't like her tea, because it's helping Mother to die.

The shadow of Dante's dress passed over him, and the sibilance of silk on wood made him shiver. "Edward…" And her voice was much the same, silk on wood, movement into dialogue in one clean motion. "They're warm like your mother's, aren't they? And supple, too. She was a very beautiful woman, wasn't she.

"As I am."

Edward made a pitiful noise.

"And what of my touch? So cool, so smooth, is that what you're thinking. Just like hers." Alphonse shut his eyes against the sight he could not even see from his position below the floorboards, clamped his hands where his ears would have been.

Imagination was sharper than reality could ever be. Alphonse saw 'Dante'—not the kind Lady Dante, but Dante-in-Lyra howhowhow did this happen?—decorated in her taffeta and her lace approach Edward's prone form, press her breasts to his neck and caress his cheek, slick with sick-sweat, with her cold doll hands.

"Stop," Edward protested. "Stop."

"My kiss, you said? If you insist. Tell me if it's just like hers, if you can remember back that far. My lips are sweeter than hers, Edward. Don't try to resist. You cannot."

"STOP!" Alphonse crashed through the floorboards. He couldn't stand to hear that any longer, couldn't bear it, because he was so scared so scared so scared—

He wrenched Dante from atop his brother and threw her to the ground all in one swift motion. Edward slid off the bed as well, in a cascade of white linen.

Dante yelped, cradled her thin porcelain arm where he had grabbed her. To Alphonse's surprise, bright purple bruises blossomed instantly on her flesh, a mulberry stain spilling across her forearm with astonishing speed. Dante carefully tucked her (Lyra's!) short hair behind her ear and announced plaintively, "You've hurt me, Alphonse.

"You've hurt me."

Something cold and hard birthed itself within Alphonse the moment she laid one hand on Edward. It was this force, all steel and clarity, that lashed out now. "I don't care. You're hurting him. And I can't let you do that." He settled into a basic guard position. "I'd never let you do that."

Dante gave him a skeptical look, like a teacher incredulous of a student's claims. She treated him like a child, even now. "Really, Alphonse. I was counting on you to have more sense than your brother, here. Or I would have found some way to incapacitate you as well. You've already let me hurt him, darling. I'm hurting him even now and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

"Because, really. I'm not much for fighting. A quieter approach is so much more satisfying, don't you think? Fair fights have never gotten anyone anywhere." She turned her back to him, as though daring him to attack. "Where has Hohenheim of Light gone off to?"

"This is all…" Edward began, slumped against the side of the bed, voice low and hoarse and breath ragged. "About…you and him, isn't it. Al and I, we. We just got caught…in the crossfire, didn't we."

"My, but aren't you curious!" Dante smiled, painted lips stretched too thin against her face. She stood, making her way towards Alphonse. "But don't strain yourself too hard. Sometimes there are no true answers.

"You can't solve everything, Edward. Try, and you…" Absently, she traced the red flamel emblazoned on Alphonse's shoulder. "Just end up shattering the pieces you already had. …Isn't that right?

"Don't take it as a personal offense, love. I may very well need you sometime in the far future, when your fool of a father is gone and you are all that is left. But for now, all I need you to do is suffer. And I need for your brother to watch."

Edward rasped laughter. "Right. And if I die…?"

Dante paused for a moment; whether to think or purely for dramatic effect, Alphonse couldn't decide. He was too numb to decide. Moment after moment played out in front of him, but he'd stopped moving. "Well, I like to think that's the reason he had two sons. That was our first mistake, after all. Having only one child. But you needn't know our personal history."

And yet, she was throwing it in their faces. 'Our'; hers and Hohenheim's. It wasn't just Edward and Mom and Alphonse, anymore; family was Hohenheim. But Hohenheim's families stretched further even than time itself, it seemed.

We're the sort who trust our family. Did he trust Dante?

"These boys should not concern you, Dante." And there was Hohenheim in the doorway, hands in pockets, with the quiet calm of expectation. "They're looking to your notes for creating the Philosopher's Stone. They'll run into the same roadblocks."

"But you won't." Dante didn't turn to face him, didn't skip a beat. Alphonse watched a ghostly smile curl from her chin to her lips to her cheeks. By the time it reached her eyes, it reeked not of happiness but of hungry ambition. "You didn't. And you can do it again because, conveniently enough, the life of your beloved son is at stake."

"And Edward's life is worth the cost of you obtaining a Stone?"

Uncertainty spiked in Alphonse. What was Hohenheim saying? Dante stiffened as well.

"Do you still put so much stock in love?" His eyes seemed to soften, but his voice was as impassive as before.

Dante bit her lip savagely. "I trusted that you did. I know why you left me; I don't blind myself to the truth." She made a faint gesture towards Edward. "But care to tell me why you left comely Miss Trisha? I doubt it was her thirst for power that disgusted you so. So tell me, why did you desert her, too? Have you found her replacement, too?"

"I have never been disgusted by you, Dante," Hohenheim replied, as though placating a child. "Only disappointed."

"And I am disappointed in you. Would you truly let your son die in order to punish me? Though of course it's flattering you hold me in such high esteem. You would let him die for me?"

After a brief pause, Hohenheim clapped his hands together, and Dante smiled as she had previously, all hunger but no satisfaction. (Not yet.)

Alphonse braced himself for the flood of light and energy characteristic of an alchemic transmutation. (At the back of his mind: If Dad makes a Stone, what will Dante do with it? And how is he going to make one like that, with no circle? There's no way—)

Color exploded in Alphonse's vision instead of white light. Mulberry flowers blossomed from Hohenheim's palms, slithering up to mid-forearm. The flesh of his fingers seemed to rust and crack, and his blood trailed down his wrists to complement the mulberry as he held up his arms for Dante to see. "You can't control for everything.

"In that, we are the same, Dante."

Then what… about Brother?

"We can no longer make the Stone. We are not alchemists. But we are human," Hohenheim said, unmoving. "You know poisons, Dante. And you know antidotes. Help me save him.""

"It's better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Dante's voice was deadly quiet, the line well recited.

Alphonse felt Edward shift slightly.

Hohenheim sighed, rolling his sleeves back down over the destruction he wrought on his arms. Then he adjusted his glasses, eyes closed. "Worse still to serve in Hell. You are not the Devil, Dante."

Dante slipped past him in the doorway, excusing herself. Attendants of the Devil walk free. "This is your family. You pick up the pieces."

The question, 'why?' has never been answered well. Father, with all his learning and his patience, is no exception.

"I am unneeded here." Mother is shaken by the assumption, but answers levelly. Shouldn't that be for her to decide? She needs him. She and him and their two little boys—this is their family.

Father shakes his head, slow, like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. "You create, Trisha." You protect.

"I would die for Dante. But our children will live for you."

.fin

"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" line borrowed (quite obviously) from John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Ambiguous ending like whoa. Apologies for incongruence, craziness, and general rape of canon.