A/N: Van Hohenheim... one of the most fascinating, interesting and underdone characters in the history of anime. He has over four centuries of backstory, and yet we know so little about him... just his beginning, and his end. The underdone bit is deliberate I'm sure, but still, I would like to have known a little bit more about him. We know that he had a temper in his youth, but has mellowed considerably in his old age. We know that he loved Trisha, but couldn't stay with her or their sons. I've always wondered what brought him home after so many years, why he'd never written in all that time, and what he must have felt when he discovered his home in ruins. Thus, this was born...

Homecoming

It had been a long time, but Van Hohenheim was finally going home. He had little concept of how long he'd been away, but he was sure it had been a fair few years. In all his long life, in his centuries of wandering, nothing had felt longer than the time he had spent away from his family.

He had lived in Resembool consecutively for only a few short years, but it was still the only home he'd ever known.

Home.

It felt so good to say, think it, to see the green fields of Resembool pool out of the distance as the train rushed forwards. It had broken his heart to leave it all that time ago, broken his heart to stay there, too. Trisha had understood, he knew she had, but now he was going to have to explain it to Pinako and Edward and Alphonse-

His sons. He wondered how old they were now. Would they still be playing outside, messing around of that swing he'd made them? Or would they be too old for that- off chasing girls or making mischief?

He supposed he'd find out, soon enough.

For the umpteenth time, he wondered if he'd done right, never writing or calling once in all this time. For the most part, it had been too hard- he'd been travelling rough, staying far away from civilisation. He knew he could have done if he'd have tried, but emotionally, it had been too difficult. How would Trisha explain to the boys why their father wrote and didn't come visit? And how would be bear it, never being able to hear back from them, since he moved about too often? Or worse, hearing from them, his beloved family, and never being able to finish his quest?

It didn't matter now, he was almost back. Not to stay, not quite yet, but to explain everything. To tell Trisha that he had found a way to become mortal, but would have to leave her once more... to try and save the world, and maybe not come back.

"Resembool station! Next stop, Resembool station!"

The train slowed to stop and Hohenheim was the first to get up.

"Home," he mumbled beneath his breath. "I'm back."

He got off the carriage muttering under his breath over and over again, as though he didn't quite believe he was there, standing in Resembool station after so long. Everything looked just the same- one of the things he loved about the place. There was the tavern where he and Pinako had spent many a good night, drinking themselves under the table, there was the same butchers, corner shop, bakers... and the green-grocers, where he'd first met Trisha.

Trisha Elric, the first and only woman he'd ever loved, could ever love. The soul that made all the others inside him pale by comparison, the only person he'd ever entrusted his secret to. Over four hundred years he'd been in the world until he met her, and yet she was the one that had taught him things. How to love, to believe in soulmates, to be a father...

A newspaper fluttering in the breeze caught around his ankles. His eyes darted to the date. 1915. He had been gone over ten years.

Trisha would be thirty-seven now, and Edward and Alphonse would be in their teens, practically men already. Were they going to hate him for turning up now, when he'd abandoned them as tiny children? There was only one way to find out.

He took a deep breath and started up the lane.

He shouldn't be going home yet, it would only cause her more heartbreak. But, if she had the choice, he knew she'd want to see him once more, just like he wanted to see her.

Maybe he wouldn't tell the boys, maybe he'd just see her, leave before they got home. Would that be better, perhaps? He longed to see them again, and he owed them more than a simple explanation, but if things took a turn for the worse and he didn't come back, would he just be added unnecessary confusion into their lives?

Not a single day had gone by when he hadn't thought of them, wondered how they were doing, what sort of people they were becoming. With Trisha as their mother, they could only be good, but that didn't stop him from wondering. Had Edward started to drink milk? Had Al got his much longed-for kitten? Was little Winry Rockbell still their best friend, or had this blossomed into something more over the years? He caught the boys "fighting" over her more than once before he'd left.

The Rockbells... how they were doing? They were good people, the very best. He could imagine the house full of kids by now, that had always been their plan one day. Perhaps he'd go up there, after he'd seen Trisha, just to see.

The closer he got, the more memories came flooding back. Meeting Trisha by bumping into her at the green-grocers where she worked, then bumping into her again with Pinako. She was a good friend of the family's, having grown up with Urey Rockbell. She didn't have any family, her late parents' house all by herself. She offered him a room when he revealed he had no where to stay.

She talked a lot, and he liked that, just about happy, inane things. She'd known a lot of sadness in her life, but she'd taken it all in her stride.

He surprised himself, how quickly he'd fallen in love with her. It was like falling over a cliff... even if you saw it coming, there was no way you could stop yourself from falling, and falling hard.

He told her what he was, and she'd just smiled, as if she'd already known, and taken that in her stride as well.

Before he knew it, they were married. Nothing had mattered back then, they were in love, untouchable. What he was, what she was- nothing came between them. He was so caught up in being normal, in playing the part of husband and lover, that he honestly forgot for some time that he wasn't completely human.

"Nearly there now," he smiled to himself, reaching a familiar fork in the road. He looked out over the fields to where two hills dipped together, hoping to a have a first glance at the house. To his surprise, he couldn't see it. "Odd," he thought, but then pushed it back. It had been sometime since he'd been there, he'd probably misjudged the location slightly. He could still see the tree, just about. The house was probably just behind the hill.

When Trisha had told him they were having a baby, he'd been over the moon. They'd discussed it, of course, and he'd expressed worries that he would be able to have children at all. Trisha just smiled and said they'd see what came.

Edward came. A tiny, bouncing baby son with a temper unlike any he'd ever seen. He screamed an awful lot and made a fuss about the smallest things... and Hohenheim loved him, in a strange and completely indescribable way that was impossible to understand until you became a father for yourself. If Hohenheim would have moved Heaven and Earth for his wife, he would have moved the universe for his son, done absolutely anything within his power to spare him pain and suffering.

The same thing happened when Alphonse was born, little over a year later. Two tiny miracles.

"See?" Trisha had laughed when Al had been placed in her arms for the first time. "And you were worried we wouldn't have children! We'll have a house full of them, you'll see. We've already got a head start over Urey and Sara!"

Al was the perfect foil for his rough, tempestuous, reckless older brother. He was calm and quiet, patient and gentle from the earliest age- very much his mother's son. It was easy to see (after some initial sibling rivalry) that both brothers adored each other.

He hoped that was still the case.

"It must be," he smiled to himself. "Trisha raised them good, I know she did. Trisha-"

Hohenheim stopped, turning the corner onto the road where his house once stood, but there was nothing there, just a few brick foundations and moss-covered wooden beams, and the burnt-out shell of a tree where he once hung that swing.

Nothing. No bright roof, no painted door. No garden, no flower boxes hanging from the windows. No washing line, or sound of children playing. No Trisha, singing as she made the dinner.

No Trisha...

No Trisha, or Edward, or Alphonse.

Nothing, just a hollow, blackened ruin that didn't even look like part of a house anymore.

What... what happened here? Hohenheim was shaking. Where was Trisha? Where were the boys? Had there been some accident, some fire? Had they got out, or had they-

No. They got out, Hohenheim clenched his fists together. They had to.

He walked, half-dazed, up the road to where the Rockbell house stood. Somebody there would tell him what was going on, where his family had gone. Logical sense and reason had abandoned him, what he would say to whoever was there didn't matter, he just had to know...

He walked up the steps to the front door, ignoring the warning growls coming from inside. He didn't trouble to knock, just lifted up the latch and stood in the doorway. A little old woman rushed up to meet him.

"Pinako," he breathed, "My house is gone."

.o0o.

A/N: I want to follow this up with the conversation between Pinako and Hohenheim, as she explains exactly what happened and we see a different side to this enigmatic character, but we'll see! R & R, pretty please?