"So, was there anything good in the future, I mean there must have been some happy times, right?" Al asked curiously.
"Oh, sorry, Fullmetal, I couldn't see you under all my paperwork."
"Shut up, you complete and utter bastard!"
"Yo! You're the Elrics right? I heard you need a place to stay."
"Oh? Can you take me to Rush Valley? Please!"
"Thanks for the meal, I owe you one."
"I promise you that your next tears will be tears of joy!"
Ed grinned. "There were some good times... Hey Al, you know you... you nearly had a girlfriend." He chuckled, remembering how the Xingese princess had acted around his brother... And what he hadn't been around for, Winry had filled him in about.
Al frowned. "Who?" He looked mildly concerned. "While we're on that topic, did you ever get around to confessing to Winry or did you find someone else-"
Ed blushed furiously. How had Al managed to turn that around? Then he paused. "I... I was going to confess to Winry after... after everything, but that never happened."
Al shrugged. "Then why not do it now? You both remember, right? So you may as well tell her."
Ed frowned, still rather red. "You're taking this remarkably well." He said, mostly just to change the subject.
Al shrugged. "I don't think that I'm too shocked to be shocked."
Ed stared. "That makes no sense whatsoever."
"Then I'll have an extremely delayed reaction." The younger Elric said sagely.
There was a pause, then. "Who else is from the future? You only said it was bad, and that you've time travelled, but you didn't say what actually happened."
Ed grinned sheepishly. "Well, we had a really scary alchemy teacher for one."
Al paled. "You don't mean Izumi taught us in that timeline too?" He shuddered.
Ed smirked. "There weren't even any islands involved this time."
His little brother whimpered. "Actually... Can you not tell me about that? I don' t want to even think about her training methods right now."
"We travelled a lot." Ed supplied, trying not to think of any of the bad things, because this was happy. They could be happy, none of it had to happen.
"We met a lot of cool people too!"
"But short means little. So you're the little brother."
"I want everything: money, power, you name it, I want it."
"Mr. Alphonse! Did you really come all this way just to see me?"
"Woah, that wall is really tall!"
Al merely laughed at the expression on his brother's face- the older Elric seemed lost in memories. "Wow, were there really that many people that we met?"
Ed shrugged. "A couple of interesting people in particular. We met some Xingese people too."
"Really, that's cool, what were they like?"
"Well, Lan Fan was a ninja... She was really cool, actually, good to have on your side... Although she was really sloppy if anyone insulted her boss. Oh yeah, she got automail too! She really helped us out in a fight with Gluttony." Ed grinned, and Alhponse's eyes grew wide.
"You fought alongside a ninja? That's so cool!"
"So what was the Xingese girl like?" Kabuto asked happily. "I want to know about your friends."
"She was small." Scar grunted. "And we weren't really friends."
"You said she was small already." Scar's brother said patiently. "So was she just small for her age or was she young?"
"She was young."
Kabuto smiled. "Then I hope you were nice to her."
Scar merely shrugged, and Kabuto sighed. "Okay, what about your other friends?"
Scar paused. "There was a doctor." Even then, Scar sounded bitter, and Kabuto made a mental note not to push the subject. If it'd upset his brother, he was okay with leaving it for a while. Because he cared, because he hated seeing his brother in pain, and because he hoped talking about the good would somehow take away the bad, at least for a little while.
And that would be enough for him.
"Trisha, knowing would break you." Hohenheim said softly. His tone, however gentle was firm, and that caused Trisha to lose her temper.
Her sons mattered more than the world to her. And the same should be true for Hohenheim.
"I don't care. Those are our sons, Hohenheim." Trisha said coldly. "I deserve to know. I died. When? Why? How? Who was there for our sons?"
"She said 'sorry I couldn't keep my promise. I'm going first.'"
Hohenheim sighed. "Trisha, honestly, you're better off not-"
"What happened after I died? How young were they?" Trisha asked again, voice raising.
Hohenheim crumpled.
"I want to grow old with Trisha and the kids." What had that wish been for? He had missed so much, and they'd still failed in the end. So why would he give up on that one wish?
"They were quite young."
Before, Hohenheim had been distant, withdrawn from his family, and that had given Trisha an inkling as to what was coming. It had given her time to accept and understand. Before, both of her boys had been innocent and young and free.
Last time, Trisha had eventually watched for clues and guessed that it must be important, only this time, she suddenly had her hands full with her boys learning alchemy, their new teacher and Edward getting into trouble at school.
This time was different. Hohenheim, vowing not to make the same mistakes as in the past had become closer to his family than he'd ever dreamed he'd have the chance to be. So the caring father not being there for their precious sons... Trisha wasn't so understanding this time.
The idea that he would abandon their sons, even in another timeline was unthinkable.
Trisha's eyebrows rose. "You mean you don't know the exact age?" She yelled, eyes blazing. "Were you there or not?"
"What happened after I died?" A faint yell echoed into the room, and Ed stopped talking. Al froze and went pale.
"Mum... died?" He whispered, staring at Ed.
"Shit." Ed choked out.
"Why couldn't you put me back together, Edward?" For a second, he saw red. Red tomatoes oozing over the floorboards. Red blood leaking from his mother's mouth. Red agony from his leg, from his arm, from the thing they transmuted.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, and jerked back to reality as Al put a hand on his shoulder.
"Brother." He whispered, and Ed nodded. Together, they raced towards Hohenheim's study, listening to everything falling apart.
"No. I had left by that point and didn't return until it was too late." Hohenheim confessed, because he had been many things, a monster, a survivor, a coward, but not a liar. Never a liar.
And he couldn't bring himself to lie to Trisha. He deserved the hatred he'd get. Because he'd failed her. He'd failed their sons. He was a failure. Not a liar.
The two boys peaked around the door as Trisha slapped him.
"Why did you leave?" She whispered, and it sounded like she was trying not to cry. And why wouldn't she cry? He was their father. He had left and she had died and everything had fallen apart.
"He made the counter circle. It saved everyone." Ed blurted, causing both adults to whirl around and stare.
Hohenheim's eyes were wide, because Edward, the son who was bitter, had hated and blamed was defending him.
"No, Edward. I was a failure as a Father. You said as much yourself." Hohenheim's voice was quiet and so full of pain. Not a liar. Never a liar.
There was a long silence after that.
Then Trisha managed a weak smile. "How about you start at the begining, both of you. Then we'll figure this out. Together."
Because their little family, no matter the guilt, the pain and the lies and the truths that hurt far too much, was worth all that much more to each of them.
So sick of all the secrets, sick of all the pain, sick of all the guilt, the father and the son spoke of the future, of metal and blood and pocket watches. They tried telling it like a story, to try and keep the sad ending fictional.
Ed glossed over some things, like the date that had been carved into his pocket watch, like the blood in the snow in that cold, lonely mine, and most of all, he only mentioned that his time in the military meant he had seen some bad things, because Nina spoke enough in his nightmares. Because he still dreamed of Scar's red eyes and the gaping holes in Al's armour. He could still remember Hughes' smile and Gracia's quiet tears.
But Trisha and Al and even Hohenheim, who had been there could guess. They could only imagine what could cause him to wake up screaming.
Hohenheim didn't speak of the lonliness in the long years he spent on the counter circle, or the pain of coming home, finally home, only to find everything gone, like he'd always feared. He didn't need to say anything, because his voice gave everything away.
But through all the pain, all the tears, there was the kind of relief that only came with sharing something. Because Trisha and Alphonse could finally understand why there were all the secrets, all the nightmares, and Ed and Hohenheim felt their burdens become so much lighter.
Because they were a family, and nothing would ever change that.