Hohenheim was staring at him from across the breakfast table. This had been continuing for around three minutes and Edward's left eyelid was beginning to twitch. He fidgeted under his father's stare; it couldn't be natural to not blink for this long. Finally Edward hit the ceiling of his patience and ripped the bread roll from his mouth with a snarl.
"What is it old man?"
Hohenheim simply smiled in response, tilting his head affectionately.
"Okay, well, if you're not going to say anything, I'm going out." Ed muttered, tearing off a chunk of bread angrily.
The older man put down his teacup on the mismatched saucer, still not breaking eye contact.
"You're starting to look like yourself again." He replied simply.
Edward saw red.
"And how would you know who that is?" he snapped, "Don't even start to pretend to know me old man." Ed stuffed the rest of the bread into his mouth before levelling an aggressive glare at his father.
Edward chewed angrily for a moment, mouth too full to berate the man any further.
They'd been arguing almost every day recently and it was starting to wear on Ed's patience. Maybe it was a symptom of spending almost everyday together for far too long, or perhaps it had something to do with the old man's lack of social interactions. Hohenheim had spent most of the last year locked in his office. Sure, Ed had already done some pretty stupid stuff in this world, but the old man had been blowing up so easily recently.
"I had a letter this morning." Hohenheim said, seemingly not even aware of Ed's outburst. "The University of Berlin has expressed some interest in having me take up a lecturing position."
"You can't make me go back to Germany." Edward replied simply in a matter-of-fact tone.
"You said the same thing about coming to England in the first place." Hohenheim said, refilling his teacup from the pot on the table.
"If you're so desperate to leave, just go on your own."
Hohenheim paused slightly before continuing to stir his tea.
"You know I can't do that Edward." He said, an emotion dancing in his eyes that Ed couldn't recognise.
"Whatever."
They sat in silence for a moment, the rain hammering against the windows. Edward buried his face in his arms, watching Hohenheim sip his tea.
"Anyway," Ed continued, "S'not like the weather in Germany was any better than here." Edward's words were muffled by his sleeve.
Hohenheim chuckled deeply.
"Very true indeed." he replied warmly.
Edward took his plate to the pitcher of water he had filled earlier that morning. He rinsed it off, trying to avoid putting too much weight on his bad leg. It wasn't doing well. Every step sent a new jolt of agony up through his hip.
Clearly Hohenheim had noticed his gritted teeth, because before he had a chance to deny the pain, the old man had maneuvered him into one of the kitchen chairs.
"The port?" he asked, bending down to take a closer look at the prosthetic.
Ed nodded grumpily, reticently allowing Hohenheim to manipulate the joint of the fake knee
"Can you extend both legs for me?"
Edward complied and the older man examined both legs together before making a funny noise.
"What?"
"I was hoping that maybe you had simply outgrown the prosthetic, but that doesn't seem to be the case-"
Edward suppressed a growl, poorly.
"-the leg still seems to fit very well. But, you've clearly had a bad reaction to the winter here and the prosthetic is simply too taxing on your frame. It's just not automail, you're going to have to relearn how to live with these new limbs."
Edward knew all too well that it wasn't automail. If he ever saw Winry again, Ed's first priority would be to apologise for everything he had ever complained about.
"Don't even bring that up old man." Ed grumbled, jerking his leg out of Hohenheim's hands. "This world doesn't even have anything approaching automail."
Hohenheim paused slightly, a pensive look on his face.
"I think...I think perhaps we might be able to do a little better than this." Hohenheim started, "It wouldn't be for a while, but I have some contacts who might be able to help with improvements. No promises though."
Edward nodded; it was the closest he could bring himself to saying thank you to the bastard.
After a short while, the rain let up just enough to allow Ed to visit Nicolas for their now regular afternoon session. He ignored Hohenheim's probing questions about his destination and began to make his way to the Flamel house.
Edward made it to the door, thankfully without a single slip on the slick cobblestones. He really wanted a word with the people who had designed this village.
Nicolas opened the door with his customary broad smile.
"Ah, Edward, just in time! I've something to show you!"
Ed found himself being steered through the older man's laboratories and into a room he hadn't seen before. It was much like the other rooms in the grand house; only these walls were devoid of any bookshelves. A large square table was the centre-point of the room, the surface covered with trays and trays of small vials.
Nicolas' eyes were dancing with excitement.
"We have been talking about chrysopoeia recently, have we not?"
Edward nodded slowly, that was something he had been meaning to bring up with Nicolas and Albus. Ever since the bombshell that was dropped on him a few weeks ago, he had been questioning just what Nicolas was planning to do with this research. Chrysopoeia was a particularly dangerous line of study, Edward knew from experience. He'd seen Amestrian alchemists go mad over the idea of transmuting gold; there was a reason it was forbidden.
He wasn't going to sit back and watch another great mind fall to hubris. He'd learnt that lesson the hard way.
"Well," Nicolas continued, "I was playing with the machine we were using the other day and something rather interesting began to happen…" he trailed off, leaning down to pluck two vials from the table.
"This is the solution I've been working from for many years." he swirled the golden liquid in the vial. "It has many different properties, a panacea for lack of a better word."
Edward narrowed his eyes, but if Nicolas noticed, he didn't seem to show it. Instead, the older man presented the second vial to Ed.
"Would you believe me If I were to tell you that these emerged from the same solution?"
Inside the vial was a collection of tiny red stones, almost like magnified sand. Edward paused slightly before answering.
"I could be convinced."
"The main components of the panacea are, of course, salt for the physicality, sulphur as the vibrational essence and mercury as the etheric component."
"And so you used the sulphur of gold?" he asked.
Nicolas paused slightly.
"Yes, exactly. How did you know?"
"Just a lucky guess." Ed replied with a wry smile that didn't meet his eyes, handing the vial back.
Nicolas nodded slowly and looked into the vial pensively.
"The panacea has been operational for years, but I'm just on the edge of reaching the pinnacle of my life's work. You know what I speak of, don't you Edward?"
Edward felt something in his blood turn to ice.
Nicolas was looking at his over his spectacles expectantly but all Edward could focus on were the emotions mounting within him. He was swept up in some combination of anger, sadness and a bone-deep weariness.
The universal target of all great alchemists. The thing that had defined his very existence for almost as long as he could remember.
The thing he couldn't seem to escape from.
"...The Philosopher's Stone."
Nicolas nodded, oblivious to the typhoon of emotion swirling through his companion.
"Indeed. The current solution works as a far less effective version of the so-called universal medicine, but it's served me well over the years. The real thing though, the possible applications are simply phenomenal. We could increase quality of life for people across the world-"
"What do you plan to sacrifice for it?"
Edward's eyes were hard, fixed on the vial intently.
"What exactly do you mean?" Nicolas asked with a frown.
"You know what I mean Nicolas. That sort of power isn't free, it can't be. What's equal in value to that sort of control over the laws of the universe?"
Nicolas paused slightly.
"I think I understand where you're coming from." Nicolas said slowly.
"There has to be equivalence! You can't receive more than you give; it's a fundamental law of the universe. There are very few things that match up to a stone and you don't have the right to sacrifice any-"
Nicolas let out a sharp noise of understanding.
"Ah! Yes, you are absolutely right!" he replied. "And that would be entirely true if you attempted to somehow remove magic from the equation. Of course, it's the reason why all Muggle scientists have failed; without magic the formula is incomplete."
Edward's mind was racing. If Nicolas was telling the truth, this was not the same stone that he was familiar with, it couldn't be.
Ed leaned forward, fixing Nicolas with an intent stare.
"The applications of a fully developed stone, what sort of effect could it have on human life?" Ed started, carefully constructing his question. "For example, purely hypothetically, could it bring someone back from death?"
Nicolas let out a sigh and shook his head sadly.
"I'm afraid that its capacities mainly lie in curing illness and extending life. Now, there are some magical artefacts which have been rumoured to be able to bring people back from the other side, however I'm unaware of any reliable examples of this being achieved. Anyone who claims to be able to do this is either lying or far beyond my abilities."
Edward felt an invisible weight leave him. This was not the same force that he was familiar with.
Or at least, he didn't think it was. Nicolas' openness with sharing his research was a big reassurance. That being said, he wasn't jumping at the idea of bringing another stone into the world, no matter how different it might be. The idea of dealing with such unbelievable power again was almost unimaginable, but at this point, it seemed as if he didn't have to worry about that.
What he did have to worry about was understanding how this magic and the alchemy he was familiar with linked together. Obviously there were similarities but the differences were proving even more significant.
Just reading about the theory in books was proving insufficient. How was he meant to understand all of this without any first-hand experience? There had to be a way for him to experience the magical world without having any so-called magic himself.
Similarities between this world and Amestris kept coming up when he least expected it. He wasn't going to leave such a similar similarity alone; he had to be involved in this research. Edward couldn't pass up a potential route back home, back to Alphonse.
It was funny; he had spent so much of his life chasing after the stone.
Now it seemed to be the one following him.
Before long, Edward had become a firm fixture in the day-to-day life of the Flamel household. When Albus would arrive for their evening discussions, the young blond would almost always be there. Sometimes he could be found in the study, with his nose buried in a book, other times Edward's argumentative tones would greet him before Albus had even opened the door, and on one particularly memorable occasion, Albus had found him in the living room, fending off Perenelle's offers of cake and tea.
This new routine meant that Albus was entirely unsurprised to open the door to find Edward and Nicolas, both absorbed in their respective books. Edward was somehow holding a book that looked to be almost the same size as him. It was impressive but Albus knew any comment would instantly be interpreted as an insult to the boy's height, so he remained silent. As he shut the door quietly, Nicolas raised his eyes in greeting. Edward didn't acknowledge Albus' arrival, instead remaining fixated on the pages before him, a small frown dimpling his forehead.
Only a few months ago this behaviour would have frustrated Albus, but he now recognised the extreme focus as just one of Edward's many quirks. It was strange how quickly he had become accustomed to the blonde's idiosyncratic behaviour.
Albus pulled out his quill and a few bound rolls of parchment. He had been toying with a few theories and he was finally making some headway, albeit slowly. He worked in silence for a few minutes before the room's tranquillity was broken by an almighty crash.
"It's no good!" Edward spat, having thrown the leather-bound book onto the table in disgust. "There's too much assumed knowledge here. Where am I meant to start?" He looked thoughtful for a moment, occasionally glancing at the book with his nose wrinkled, like it had been dragged out of a sewer.
"What are you having trouble with?" Nicolas asked with a frown, "I don't remember that edition having any particularly difficult concepts-"
"It's not the fucking conceptual material Nick!" Edward replied, the frustration bleeding into his voice, "I just don't know how I'm meant to read something when every other sentence is some ridiculous magical analogy. How am I meant to interpret Hufflepuff-esque? What's a fucking Hufflepuff?"
Albus strained with every fibre of his being not to laugh.
Nicolas nodded thoughtfully, obviously taking Edward's words quite seriously. He turned and pulled a handsome looking book, bound in burgundy leather, from the shelf behind him. The spine, unlike most of the books in Nicolas' library, was unbent and the cover was pristine. He placed it in front of the fuming young man.
"You have a brilliant mind Edward, but you cannot run without walking first. Perhaps you would benefit from covering some of the basics of our world, before trying to break it down."
Edward smirked at Nicolas from under his fringe.
" Understanding, deconstruction, reconstruction: we really do think the same way old man." He said, picking up the book from the table and turning it over in his hands.
"I've yet to read this particular publication, however I have heard nothing but good things. I think it would be a good place to start."
Albus immediately recognised the book as Mrs Bagshot's book on the history of Hogwarts. She was a fantastic witch, and sharper than anyone he knew, except perhaps her nephew.
Before long Edward was once again lost to the world, absorbed in the book before him. Albus had started to experiment with the Gellert's spare dragon's blood but the tedious task of compiling the new data was still waiting for him. At present his notes were scattered over various scrolls of parchment, with a few conclusions scribbled on the back of a beer coaster. He had felt compelled to take the circle of cardboard with him as a memento of sorts; Albus had always found the ingenuity of Muggles fascinating.
He spread the notes over one of Nicolas' empty tables and started to redraw his diagrams in a more legible fashion.
The room was silent, albeit for the scratch of quills and the turning of pages.
In a week, Edward had raced through Albus' first, second and third year Hogwarts textbooks. Rather than quelling his curiosity, the research seemed to only further his thirst for knowledge.
Nicolas had tried to convince him that his current level was more than sufficient to understand any obscure reference. However Edward, tenacious as always, was a man on a mission and he would not be stopped in his information seeking endeavors.
"But how does it work?" he asked, playing with the ends of his ponytail, "And more to the point, why don't people notice?"
"Don't you remember reading about the charms?" Nicolas asked, slightly puzzled, "Magical locations are almost always hidden by a series of enchantments."
"Yes, of course I remember! But what about Squibs, strong willed muggles and people like me who are in the know?" he replied.
"Ah, I understand where you're coming from now. Well, squibs are, of course, an exception. They are very closely monitored and must apply before travelling to a magically protected area. That way, everyone remains safe and secure."
"And people like me? "
"Well, if you are aware of the existence of a place, the enchantment becomes almost completely ineffective."
Edward nodded, a small smile turning up the corners of his lips.
"What was that about strong-willed Muggles, Nicolas? Surely there's no distinction between normal Muggles and those with 'strong wills'." Albus said disbelievingly.
"Ah yes," Nicolas looked slightly uncomfortable about the subject, "some muggles, although otherwise entirely un-magical, have a talent for seeing through illusions. Of course, muggle society usually deems these individuals insane and shuns them from society. However we have had a few…unfortunate incidents in the past."
Albus frowned; he didn't want to imagine what those incidents involved.
"Anyway, for that reason, now almost every magical location requires at least some display of magical ability to enter. It would be impossible to a Muggle to enter alone."
"And what if they weren't alone?" Edward asked, a smirk growing on his face.
Nicolas replied by rolling his eyes and dropping the final seventh year textbooks in front of him with a bang.
Next time:
Ed has a somewhat questionable idea, Nicolas schemes and the barman should really stop being surprised at this point.
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