Chapter I

--

Hohenheim wondered if the trip through the Gate hadn't damaged part of Edward's mind, or perhaps caused insanity. There were days when he might have a break from his furious scribblings in those notebooks of his to come down and peer in on Hohenheim's research, or would pick up a paper written by one of the students his father taught to glance over it scoffingly and proclaim that all German scholars of biology were morons, but it was rare. Despite times when he showed a brilliantly concocted formula to his father, madness manifested itself in many ways; and always it was linked back to the all-pervasive obsession with returning to Amestris to find Alphonse.

At times, the boy seemed mentally deficient, displaying antisocial qualities in an almost phobic reaction to the suggestion of company, and hiding up in his room all day doing nothing but writing things that no one saw, making notes on his life that he apparently wanted for no purpose other than to have documentation that it happened. Perhaps, Hohenheim theorized, the stress was too much for him. He had adapted well enough to being cast into a strange world where nothing worked the same and the one thing he'd spent his life learning was regarded as medieval nonsense, a crackpot science. But he'd lost what appeared to be the one thing that mattered to him, and his only family was a man he'd hated since he was five years old.

It took a toll, and so Hohenheim let him try to deal with it in his own way, even if that meant shutting himself off from reality. Edward was strong; eventually he'd come around and realize that living in the past wouldn't fix it. But it was worrying that he showed no signs of waking up from his shock any time soon, and didn't even seem to want to. Even after seven months...

With a sigh, the scientist closed his book, pulling a briefcase out from underneath his desk. He couldn't afford to spend any more time speculating. There were papers to grade, if they were going to keep their home and be able to feed themselves.

Sometimes it was amazing how Edward could freeload, being at the same time so antagonistic toward his benefactor, and somehow Hohenheim still did not have the will to throw him out. They were each other's only family, as much of a stretch as that condition might be when applied to them, until Edward found a way back to Alphonse. It wouldn't be long, if what he was writing in his journals was research or anything to do with getting home. When that boy set his mind to it, he would do anything.

No, he had too much will for his mind to buckle under such circumstances. It was a certainty.
--
One of the things in Edward's notebooks was a set of papers containing rough sketches of his automail, and Edward presented these to Hohenheim when he found the 20th century prosthetics too limiting. It was not until his fifth time tumbling down the stairs and either collapsing to the floor, unable to get up until someone came and helped him or, far worse in his own mind, being caught at the last minute by Hohenheim and jerking angrily away, furious at being helped by the object of his loathing, that Edward finally presented them to his father. The man seemed almost surprised at being asked for help, but more than willing to give it.

It took quite some time to work out, with minimal resources and poor technology, how to construct an Amestrian piece of machinery here in Germany. On top of that, the notes were vague and employed the most base of drawing skills (Edward's own, from memory), but by studying them Hohenheim had managed to construct a model made of light metal. It was flimsy, and motion was constricted by the fact that Hohenheim was not an automail engineer and could only attach select nerves to the port without damaging Edward's circuitry in a permanent way, but it was better than nothing.

"It's no good for fighting," he reported to a sullen Edward, "but it's unlikely you'll be doing much of that anyway, unless the drapes attack you."

His sense of humor had become a thing of legend between them, particularly its awkwardness and bad semblances of wit. For such a smart man, Hohenheim found it difficult to just have a conversation with people– that wasn't any easier considering it was often his son who had an inherent detestation of him, spoke little, and was self-conscious over his missing two limbs and a sudden lack of remedy for that. Despite the painful clumsiness of their conversations, he knew that fitting Edward's improved prostheses was one of the few ways he could get him to stay around long enough to speak with him in a civilized way, and so he tried, making bad jokes or telling him solemnly how to take care of the pseudo-automail, and slipping in comments on weather that Edward did not notice or care about. When the fitting was finished, he stood up, leaving his father with a look of failure on his face. Hohenheim stopped him at the door of the room.

"It will have to be maintenanced periodically. You can probably remove and clean it yourself, if you prefer I don't do so, but I'd be willing to help, if you can't. Be sure not to–"

"Stop it. You're not Winry, and don't try to boss me around. If you wanted me to listen to you, maybe you should have been more of a father to me."

The words hurt, but Hohenheim disdained to let it show. Edward stalked off with a limp and no words of gratitude. Whatever they deserved, it wasn't this.

It sometimes seemed like only one of them was trying at all.
--
Five weeks later, Edward was less distant but he was meaner during his moments of attentiveness. Whenever Hohenheim attempted to talk with him about the time they'd spent apart, the boy simply reminded him that you "shouldn't live in the past," and said it was worthless to bother with mistakes you couldn't fix. Hearing his own phrasing come back to spurn him was like a shock of cold water, and that wasn't all of it. Mistakes he couldn't fix...meant that he wasn't going to be given a chance to make it up, that there was no prayer of fixing what had been broken between them.
He knew there was nothing wrong at all with Edward's mental capacity now, but it was almost an unpleasant change. When he was quiet, it was easy to pretend that he wasn't thinking angry things. When he said them, there was no way to avoid it. Could anything be fixed without facing up to it?

Of course not, Hohenheim chided himself. Equivalent exchange: you want to repair the damage you've done, you have to suffer through the hate and injury you've caused coming back to haunt you.

Knowing that didn't lend any ease to enduring Edward's glares over dinner or the caustic remarks he made during his automail tuneups, mixed in with groans of pain. "At least Winry knew what she was doing!" he say, or "Bet you're making it hurt this much on purpose, huh, old man?" Sometimes he'd simply announce, "I wonder why you're doing this for me, anyway. After all, you've already proven you don't care.

To any of these, Hohenheim could not really defend himself. Was he even worthy of any defense? He honestly didn't know. Edward's grudge was deep and equitable, but it was so old, and he'd carried it for so long, that it wasn't really based in facts or feelings anymore, just force of habit. He couldn't not hate Hohenheim; he'd done it all his life. It made sense. It was what he saw as 'right'. Nothing would fit if he suddenly gave forgiveness to the man who might as well be the root of all evils.

Hohenheim tried to understand, for the sake of being a father, but Edward resisted. He didn't want to be loved, and he didn't want his pain to go away, because it let him play the victim. Something so perverse in its simple human character was awfully basic; Hohenheim still thought he didn't understand at all.
--
When Edward hit a quiet spell again, Hohenheim worried. It was unnecessary. This was natural, even comfortable if one compared it to their strained exchanges of quips and Edward's moody insults, but it was troubling nonetheless. Mornings, it was hard to catch hide nor hair of his son, and evenings, dinner was brief before Edward excused himself silently with a scrape of chair-on-wood, leaving Hohenheim to brood in the empty dining room over a cold plate of tasteless food. At night, soft sounds trickled down through the rafters again, and Hohenheim pushed down a severe feeling shame for listening to his own child suffer and not be able to comfort him out of his own weakness and fear.

Once, the sounds stopped abruptly and alarmed, he mounted the staircase to stand at the door to Edward's room, listening.

All was still, and he called softly, "Are you all right?"

Sardonic, Edward's voice drifted through the door: "Oh, yes, wonderful."

He should have been saddened or upset, but Hohenheim was relieved. When Edward spoke, he had not yet conceded to despair.
--After that, Hohenheim would sometimes stand silent watch outside the bedroom where Edward slept, or didn't sleep. Certain nights the boy would toss and turn, blankets rustling and he oblivious that anyone was there to hear. When the sounds of a body shifting and muffled tears stopped, he would leave, not comforted but given some closure nonetheless.

In the morning, Edward gave no sign that he knew of the nighttime visitations. They ate in silence or exchanged meaningless remarks, and Edward never spoke of anything that was not mundane or a provocation. And night after night, like an obsession of his own, Hohenheim would drift upstairs from his work in the lab or papers to be graded, and listen. For something– a prayer, and admission, he didn't know what. Something that would say his son was still a person, and not a listless doll like he seemed to be, with only enough will to enact his malice and settle long-hollow grievances.

And one night, curiosity drew his hand to the doorknob, and turned it without his will. Inside, steeped in the shadows of the far end of the room, a bed's covers were bunched in the curious shape of a young man trying to curl in the imitation of a fearful child. Edward lay hunched in on himself, his face the only part of him not rigid with discomfort. Two journals were splayed open to one side of him, a pencil tucked behind his ear. He must have fallen asleep writing. By an enormous effort of self-control, he refrained from reading the notes taken down in careful handwriting onto the books' dog-eared pages.

Gently, almost with an air of reservedness, Hohenheim extracted the pencil from between hair and skin, wary of waking him. A sigh-like exhalation filled the room to saturation, and then subsided into the gentle rise and fall of Edward's chest. Bending down until his own ponytail swung mere inches from his son's countenance, Hohenheim breathed,

"Do you hate me so?"