Consider this disclaimed of any sort of ownership on my part. This is my way of showing my appreciation for Arakawa and what a great companion her story was for me for the past couple of months, for reasons innumerable. It's also one very small, miniscule way I intend to show appreciation for one other person. I think it turned out much, much longer and more convoluted than I had intended, but I like it, although I don't think it's perfect, and I will probably keep editing it and welcome critique.

Dedication and author's note at the bottom.

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His Eulogy

Five years. It had only been five years since the day Father was defeated. Five years, but Hohenheim's body seemed to think it had been fifty. When Alphonse had pointed out to his and Edward's bedridden father that his skin seemed to consist more of brown and purple splotches than ordinary, healthy cells, he had stared at one of his hands with an expression of morbid curiosity, smiling wanly when he wondered aloud whether his body was trying to make up for lost time.

Alphonse had been able to take the hand Hohenheim was scrutinizing, to rub it and feel it, to draw his eyebrows up in concern. By then, he had nourished his body to a state that made him appear as though he had never been without it. No one would guess it had been taken away from him once. And by the way father and youngest son were softly exchanging words, no one would guess Hohenheim had ever left them for ten years.

Ten years, for goodness sake.

Edward had turned away, pretending there was something interesting to study outside the window of Hohenheim's bedroom besides the frost tracing the veins of fallen leaves and browning grass. Alphonse had always seemed to have inherited more of their mother's gentle nature than he had, but he still couldn't see how his younger brother had been able to forgive their father so easily. It had taken a little over two years for Edward to stop greeting him with a curse whenever they met again after the Promised Day. Any attempt on Al's part to speak about the matter rationally with him had ended with Ed finding an excuse to leave.

A few times, when it was a bad day and he found he had to clench his fists especially tightly to keep from punching a hole into a wall, Ed wondered bitterly if Al was betraying Mom. He knew just as well how often Mom had cried in secret, how her broken heart had contributed to her illness, how the man hadn't even come to her funeral, wasn't there to comfort them and stop them from doing something stupid that rendered them needing to relocate Al's body in the first place. He hadn't been a father.

"Brother," Al had protested. "You know now what he was doing. He was trying to find a way to—"

"And I wish he'd found it and then done it in a ditch!" Ed had spat before stalking away.

He did not really mean it. The fact was that he had softened when he heard the real story. It had provoked a surge of emotion in his mind that almost released itself with salty trails down his cheeks, but he managed to keep his composure. So there was a reason, he had thought to himself. And by the sad but warm way Hohenheim looked at him, he knew it was the truth. Besides, how could he honestly blame him anymore when he and Al had been on a similar quest that kept leaving Winry alone?

But it still stung. Every memory, it stung. He tried to scream that he should have at least told them, that he could have taken them along with him, come back to visit sometimes, that he should have thought that even more than they wanted a father who could die with them, they wanted one who was there to live with them. But the words choked back in his throat, and then he felt angry that he had to say them in the first place. Hohenheim was his father, a father who claimed to love them dearly, a man who had lived for centuries. Should he not have already known such things? So instead, all that Edward had been able to say was a growling, "But you betrayed us."

One cannot feel betrayed without having given trust, and trust is given as a stepping stone to love. Children have the naivety and energy to run up such steps, especially with those who are so central in their young worlds, so of course Edward had loved his father.

But Edward hated betrayal.

So he kept telling himself he hated him. And he did not elaborate by admitting that he "hated" him because he'd loved him all along.

After a while, Alphonse concluded his visit with Hohenheim, and the brothers left the small home he'd made for himself in Resembool, close to the place where their home with Trisha formerly stood. Long gone now. There was more grass than rubble.

Absent-mindedly pulling their coats tighter around themselves as a response to the nippy late autumn air, they ambled toward what used to be solely the Rockbell home, now regularly housing the Elric brothers as well. Smoke was rising from the chimney, and they could faintly see Winry's figure in the kitchen window, cooking dinner, struggling to get near the pot on the stove without squishing her bulging belly against the counter. After a moment, she turned to her side, peeking over her shoulder to stir the pot before adding a pinch of this and a dash of that. Edward smirked at the sight, seeing a huff of his breath appear in the air when he let out a silent chuckle. He felt Alphonse glance toward him.

"She's getting bigger all the time," Al commented. "Looks like she could pop any day now."

Edward nodded. "It'll sure be nice to not have to worry about her weird cravings. The other night, she woke me up at four in the morning to get her some pickles and a jar of mayonnaise. She dipped every one of those pickles in the mayonnaise and ate them. She asked for milk, too." He shuddered and clasped his hands behind his head.

Al laughed. "I know I've had almost nine months to get used to it, but I still have a hard time imagining you as a father."

Ed frowned. "Thanks. I'm nervous enough as it is."

"No, no, I don't mean it like that," Al hurriedly insisted. "You'll be a great father, Ed. We all know that. I just mean it...." He shook his head and smiled softly. "Well, it just makes us all feel so old all of a sudden."

Ed furrowed his brows. "I'm only twenty-one. You're barely out of your teen years."

Chuckling, Al replied, "That doesn't really help. We're pretty young to be getting into something like this."

"Well, that's the way it happened," Ed shrugged. "We've spent our whole lives ahead of everybody else our age. Why should this be any different?"

Al laughed again, and Ed smirked. After a moment of companionable silence, Ed said tightly, "I know one thing I'm not going to do—I'm never going to leave them."

The older brother could almost hear the younger suppress a sigh.

"You still haven't forgiven him," Al stated plainly. Ed's response was a snort, which earned a scolding grimace from Al. "It's been five years, Ed. He's going to die soon, you know." Edward was able to conceal the fact that his heart skipped a beat, and Al continued. "He wasn't perfect, but he's our father, and he always wanted to be. Try to make amends before it's too late."

Still, Ed said nothing. This time, Al did not bother to hold back his sigh.

The two weeks that passed did not cure Edward of his disinclination to make amends with Hohenheim, but he certainly had much to say when Winry's water broke, even if most of it was not particularly intelligent.

"AL!! WA-WATER!!" he shrieked as he bounded down the stairs from his and Winry's bedroom, where Alphonse had been relaxing on a couch, book in hand.

Alphonse swiveled his head to furrow his brows at his frantic brother. "You.... want me to get you some water?"

Ed grit his teeth and looked ready to rip his hair out, and Al raised a hand as though prepared to stop him. "THE WATER IS BROKEN!!" Ed exclaimed.

"That doesn't make any—" Suddenly, Al gasped. "O-Oh! Winry's water broke?!" He took Ed's frustrated crumpling to the ground as an affirmation. "R-Right! I'll get Granny!"

"Wh-What should I do?" Ed asked desperately as he raised himself back up on shaky legs.

Al was in the middle of getting himself untangled from his coat after hastily putting it on inside-out. "Go back upstairs and let Winry know we're coming!" With that, he rushed out the door and toward the side of the house, where Granny Pinako was supervising a neighborhood boy chopping their wood.

Scraping both shins in the process of scrambling back up the stairs, Edward could not help but let out a laugh. Fear and a sense of helplessness had struck him first when Winry had gasped and told him what happened, but now it was sinking in—he was going to be a father! Winry was going to give birth! It was the miracle of life all over again, happening right in his own home, to him and his own wife! And he was going to watch!

A couple of excruciating hours later, Edward had recovered from the shock of seeing so much blood come out of his wife, his face regaining its color as he snuggled next to Winry and their newborn son.

"Just what we need," Granny Pinako scoffed with a warm smirk as she washed her granddaughter's blood off her hands. "Another crazy Elric boy."

Ed probably would have retorted if he had not been so absorbed in admiring the baby's pale red, wrinkled face with the tiny nose that kept screwing upward as he was lulled to sleep in the comfort of his mother's arms. With one arm wrapped around his wife's shoulder and the other reaching out to stroke the boy's marvelously soft skin, Ed and Winry whispered back and forth about what a wonderful job they'd done together. Pinako watched the tableau with a serene smile until Winry invited her over to see her first great-grandson up close, now that he was clean and calm. Knobby knuckles smoothed the baby's duck fuzz-like hair, and Edward felt himself swelling with a pride previously unknown to him. So this was fatherhood.

After some uninterrupted time of such bliss, there was a tentative knock at the door. Husband, wife, and great-grandmother looked up to see Al supporting Hohenheim's weight with one arm. A frown flashed across Edward's face, but Hohenheim did not notice it; his eyes had lit up at the sight of his tiny grandson. He hobbled over to the bed as quickly as he could without tripping. Mouth hanging slightly open in awe, he reached out one hand and—sensitive to the fact that his hand was big enough to envelope the baby's face—traced the boy's cheeks, forehead, and nose with one two trembling fingers. A few tears escaped Hohenheim's eyes as he grunted softly, "He's so perfect."

"Thank you," Winry smiled. The sweat that had drenched her face was beginning to dry, and Edward reached out to gently swipe a few damp strands of hair from her eyes. She thanked him by leaning toward him to give him a kiss. The baby stirred in response to the movement but ultimately remained asleep. Winry nodded pointedly at Alphonse. "Would you like to meet Uncle Al, too?" she said to her son but, of course, did not wait for a response. She slowly lifted the baby toward Al's eager arms.

As Alphonse adjusted his hold on the boy's fragile neck and head and soothingly shushed him as he began to gurgle, Edward glanced again at Hohenheim. The man was watching Alphonse and the baby with the warmest and most peaceful expression Ed had ever seen on him. It might even be said that he was glowing, though it might have simply been the way the moonbeams were mingling with the lighting in the room. Ed caught himself before he started actively wondering whether Hohenheim had had such a look on his face when he and Al were born.

On the nights when the baby's wails startled Ed and Winry from sleep, Ed also wondered how his mother had managed to retain such patience with her sons.

Winry lazily swung one arm out and whapped Edward in the face. He figured she had meant to aim for his shoulder, so he bit back his indignant insult. "It's your turn," Winry mumbled.

"I have to be up at seven," Ed moaned.

"I have to be up at six," Winry countered.

Grumbling words even he neither understood nor remembered immediately after saying them, Edward threw back his covers and staggered toward the crib. Rather than immediately picking up the baby, he collapsed his folded arms and head on the railing, staring down at the small crying face and the small waving fists and the small kicking feet.

"Never mind asking why you aren't asleep like every other good and righteous person in the world," Edward murmured. "How can something so little produce so much noise?"

Asking such a burning question did not inspire the noise to desist. With a resigned sigh, Ed reached down and cradled his son in his arms, bouncing him gently as he made his way downstairs and to the couch, away from the bedrooms containing sleeping people, taking care not to indulge his temptation to simply plop into the cushions.

Five further consecutive minutes of quieter (though still continuous) crying felt more like an hour to the exhausted alchemist. At last, Edward adjusted his hold on the baby so that he could clap and press his hands to the couch. From the fabric, there rose a rag doll that Edward promptly began waving in his son's face. The boy blinked, his cries slowly subsiding as Ed continued to bat the doll's arms at his face, taking the doll out of his reach every time he was about to grab for it. Almost without noticing, Ed started making ridiculous noises to go along with his movements and was grinning at his baby's awkward, toothless smile, tiredness forgotten. He was almost disappointed when the little boy gradually fell back asleep. But the disappointment was short-lived when he suddenly remembered how heavy his own eyelids felt, and in a matter of minutes, he had followed suit.

He woke when his hearing picked up Winry's slow creaking down the stairs. With several blinks and a yawn, he smirked at his wife as she walked over to him and propped her fists on her hips, eyeing the fabric missing from the couch.

"Did you transmute the couch to make that?" she asked, pointing at the rag doll still hanging limply in Ed's hand.

"Uh.... Yes," Ed replied a little sheepishly, then shrugged. "But it worked."

Winry was trying very hard to look angry, he could tell. But she soon gave it up, shaking her head with a sigh and a smile. "Thanks for taking him," she said, leaning down to kiss the baby's forehead before gently carrying him to the nearby rocking chair. The boy's eyes opened immediately, a little shocked by the sudden movement, but before he even had a chance to whimper, Winry had already offered him her breast.

Feeling a sense of pride and remarkable peace flow through his body over the events of the night and the beautiful image of his wife as a loving mother, Ed settled deeper into the couch with a sigh drawn deep from satisfaction, basking in the light from the rising sun. A thought suddenly occurred to him. "If you're up, that means it's only six, right?"

Winry nodded. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up in an hour."

As Ed stretched himself contentedly across the couch and smiled to himself. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I think I'm going to be a good father."

"I'm a terrible father," Edward groaned into his forearms as he sat at his desk while Winry administered a dose of infant aspirin to their son, who let out long, despairing wails between grand, open-mouthed sniffles that occasionally sounded more like a distressed snort.

Despite her pursed lips, Winry shook her head and spoke patiently. "You're not a terrible father, Ed. You just need to remember to close the window after you chase out spiders in the winter."

"I'm sorry," Ed repeated for the thirteenth time. "I was just so absorbed in...." He brought up his head to scowl at all the alchemy books before him that suddenly seemed so unimportant, sweeping them irritably off his desk before resuming his self-piteous sulking. "It was so stupid. Now he's sick."

"Yes, he's sick," Winry affirmed. "He's not dying. Calm down."

"He's only three months old!" Edward lamented.

"He'll be fine," Winry assured him, quickly patting him on the back before resuming her gentle shushing and bouncing of the baby.

Before Ed could release his sigh, Alphonse's knocking on the study door caught his attention. Once again, he had brought Hohenheim to the house.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Hohenheim," Winry greeted as the man moved to cast a concerned look on his grandson. "I take it Al told you he caught a little cold?"

Edward shot a tired glare at his brother. Al shrugged. "He's the one who insisted on coming over."

Winry suddenly gasped and jerked her head back. Wincing, she tugged at the diaper the boy was wearing and peeked inside. "Ugh," she muttered. "That's quite the load, little man." Sighing, she held the baby out toward Hohenheim. "Would you hold him for a minute, please?"

Hohenheim blinked and hesitated. "It's.... been a very long time since I held a baby."

"It's only for a minute so I can go get a fresh diaper," Winry smiled encouragingly. "Come on."

Just as Ed was about to speak up, Hohenheim nodded slowly and accepted the baby, hunching his shoulders nervously, gazing with reverent wonder at his face even though his cries became louder upon being separated from his mother. Hohenheim slowly sat in a nearby chair and began rocking his torso gently from side to side, never taking his eyes away from his grandson. Gradually, the baby quieted and began returning the man's intent, fascinated scrutiny, still sniffling and occasionally hiccuping. When Winry returned with a new cloth diaper a scant two minutes after leaving to find it, Hohenheim announced that he could change it for her.

That was followed by his insistence that he keep the baby busy so that Ed and Winry could get back to work. When they heard the clock downstairs chime eight times, Winry offered to take the boy off his hands and put him to bed, but Hohenheim shook his head and said that he would do it. The man was still there in the infant's bedroom, reading a book and keeping watch, when Ed and Winry retired to their bed a few hours later. It was the first truly restful night the couple could remember in a long time. Since neither of them had anything to do immediately in the morning, they cuddled in each other's arms and stared up at their ceiling for a while.

"It was really kind of your father to stay the night like that," Winry yawned and stretched. "I really needed a good sleep for once."

"Yeah, I guess," Ed grunted.

Winry sighed and twined her fingers in her husband's hair. "I wish you'd give him another chance, you know."

Ed declined to respond. After some time, Winry pulled herself up, planted a kiss on Edward's lips with one hand stroking his cheek, and slid out of bed, wandering across the hall to the baby's room. Ed sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, leaning over to see out the door. In a moment, he had stood and walked to Winry's side, slipping an arm around her waist, and they gazed adoringly at their son together. She placed the back of her hand against the baby's forehead and smiled.

"He's feeling better today," she whispered.

Edward watched her turn gracefully on her heel, and he looked over his shoulder as well, prepared to thank Hohenheim. But they found he had already left.

So, after thinking about it for half the day, Edward went to find him. Hohenheim was reading again, this time near the windowsill of the living room of his small home. The man looked up when Ed knocked and entered, rubbing the back of his neck. It suddenly struck Ed how much smaller and more gaunt his father had become lately. Was this really the man who had once seemed to loom over the whole world in the eyes of his young son?

"Edward," Hohenheim smiled. "Welcome."

A moment of awkward silence followed as Ed kept switching the focus of his gaze from Hohenheim to the floor and back. At last, he said, "Thanks. For last night."

Hohenheim blinked. "Well, you're welcome. I hope you slept well."

"We did," Ed answered. "We slept really well. It's been a while since we could sleep like that."

"Babies can be a handful," Hohenheim smirked. "But you're doing a good job so far, Edward." Another silence. Just as Ed nodded and turned to leave, Hohenheim's voice stopped him. "I actually used to enjoy doing that with you and Al when you were babies."

"Doing what?" Ed found himself asking. "Staying up all night?"

Hohenheim nodded, leaning back in his chair and stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I was often up for half the night anyway doing research. I usually just let your mother sleep, and if you needed anything during the devil's hours, I took care of it." Something about the way the man's stroking slowed but didn't stop told Edward to wait for more. "Of course, once you and Al got older, it started occurring to me that my inability to die with you, the people I loved most, made me something monstrous. After that, I grew rather afraid to touch you."

The sentimentality was slightly lost to Edward; instead of granting Hohenheim any indication of sympathy, he grimaced with the impatience of a four-year-old boy who had come to understand what a lie was and that adults did it all the time. "Being a human Philosopher's Stone isn't some disease somebody can catch."

"I know," Hohenheim sighed. He looked contemplative for a moment. "Maybe it was more for me than for you. I had to remind myself that I couldn't ever really be part of our family without being able to age with you. I would always stand apart. Maybe I needed to keep remembering that so that one day, I could convince myself that it was time to find a way to reverse what happened to me. It was a hesitancy I could overcome as long as I kept you out of reach, as though being with you was a reward I had to earn." He shrugged lightly, gaze focused on something beyond the floor. "Maybe. Just speculation. Either way, there was fear involved."

But Ed had stopped listening at one particular word. He clenched his fist and scowled at the floor. "Reward?"

Hohenheim blinked up at his son. At last, Ed abandoned the doorway and approached him, face flushed with too many emotions to read all at once.

"Did it ever occur to you that we just wanted you?" Ed asked sharply. Hohenheim looked confused, and Ed went on in a louder tone. "You left without saying a word to us, leaving us to find out what was going on ten years later, and only because we needed the knowledge you had to save Amestris. Al and I were left confused having to figure out how to grow up by ourselves. Do you have any idea how much grief you caused Mother? Maybe she would've lived if you'd come back!"

The atmosphere suddenly became heavy with the feeling that someone was slapped, although neither man had moved toward each other. Hohenheim breathed slowly, looking away from Edward and at his gnarled, bruised hands.

"I loved your mother with all my heart, Edward," he said softly, so softly. After a moment, he turned his eyes back up to his son, not bothering to wipe away the moisture gathering in them. "And I love you and your brother just as much."

The way his heart plummeted to his gut caused Edward to blink and realize that he had tears in his own eyes. Swiping them away irritably, he spoke determinedly through his closing throat. "But we just wanted you."

"I'm sorry," Hohenheim's face was now wet. "I'm sorry, Edward. I thought I was doing what was best for us. Please forgive me."

Hohenheim had never made such a request before. It felt as though Edward's knees were melting. He paced to and fro for a moment just to return them to a sense of solidity. An infuriating combination of the sorrow and indignation he had carried since childhood and his newfound pleading desire to bury it at last seemed to clutch at his heart. The grudge he had held onto all those years like a secret trinket or good luck charm no one could see in his pocket had kept him sane somehow, gave him a small reason to think it was not his fault that Mother had died and could not be revived, that it was not his fault he had been left alone to figure out how to grow up and hence made such an imbecilic mistake that had taken away Al's body, that it was not his fault he was worthless, because there had been someone else to blame—a bastard who had left them in the dust. But the subtle powers of truth and age had removed his need for such infantile actions, and yet, it was so ingrained in him. He was no longer sure what would keep him sane now—to keep holding onto it, or to finally let it go. His breaths were deep and somewhat haggard; he kept them silent, not wanting to betray the depth of his consternation. It was for him alone, he thought. Still, he kept trying to speak, but there was such a swamp of emotion in his mind that he could not find the words he wanted.

His father watched his restlessness with something Ed would call grim sadness, and somehow, it was the last straw. He came to a stop, straightened, squared his chin, and nodded at Hohenheim.

"Thanks again."

That would be the last time in weeks that Edward would visit Hohenheim.

That is not to say, of course, that Hohenheim did not come to visit Edward.

It was often with Alphonse's help, for Al tried to say hello to his father at least once a day. But Hohenheim came increasingly often to their house, conversing amiably with Winry, teaching Alphonse some new alchemy tricks, regaling them all with tales of his long, long life, and, most cheerfully on his part, helping to care for the little baby.

Despite still grappling with what he thought about all this, Edward couldn't help but steal a furtive glance at Hohenheim whenever the man coughed so hard it sounded like he would hurl out a lung. Ed would notice how his hands shook, how the bones pressed against his sagging, wrinkled flesh, splattered with hues of brown and purple and red, making Ed uncomfortably think of how it was like he was rotting already. To Ed's eyes, it seemed his broad face got longer and paler with every spasm, and each day, his formerly confident gait transformed further into a cautious shuffle. Increasingly often, Ed found himself wandering into the room to ask Hohenheim whether was all right, then somehow getting roped into joining him in entertaining the baby. Their subsequent conversations would cover anything and everything, and Ed would grow so fascinated by Hohenheim's centuries' worth of knowledge and experience that he would slowly loosen his grip on his grudge with hardly a notice of it.

"Oh, Trisha," Hohenheim had mused one day, a sweetly silly expression crossing his face. "The first time I saw her, I totally swooned."

This was a story Ed had not heard before. "How did you meet?" he pressed.

"Pinako introduced us a long time ago," Hohenheim replied. "She looked beautiful, of course, but what struck me most was how her eyes were so much like the ocean."

Ed cocked his head curiously. "How so?"

"They were a similar color," said Hohenheim, smiling at the memory. "A deep cobalt blue. Her gaze was steady and slowly beat down every wall I'd ever built for myself. She…." He trailed off, then finally gulped and shook his head. "I miss her very much."

It was in that moment that Edward's last defense fell. And he knew after all, after all, he loved his father.

After all.

So it was that when Edward and Alphonse heard Hohenheim's request to be taken to the ocean shore at the north end of the country, past even the brutal Briggs, they both prepared to fulfill his wish with no emotional reservations whatsoever. Winry, not wanting to leave Pinako home alone while the old woman was exhibiting signs that her own age was beginning to wear her down, opted to stay behind with the baby.

The days that Ed, Al, and their father traveled north together passed in lazy bliss. It may have been due to the fact that Ed and Al had to tone down their normally rigorous pace so that Hohenheim could keep up. But judging by their frequent comments on how at peace they felt as they watched people and plains and towns rush by on the train, and as they ate cuisine from countries of which they had never heard, and as they stayed up far too late in their hotel rooms laughing over things that retained their significance only as long as they were so amusing, the effects of Hohenheim's age would not be the reason Ed and Al would give for how slowly they took each day, why the time between sunrise and sunset seemed to stretch on in such a beautifully ridiculous way.

At last, they reached the ocean Hohenheim had so desired to see once more. It was the first time Edward and Alphonse had stood before something so breathtakingly vast and seemingly endless, sending a thrilling knowledge of their own smallness, but their father did not allow them time to ogle at it. He hobbled as hurriedly as he could to one particular spot on the shore, where there was a small inlet that appeared to have once been a tide pool. The rock that had kept it enclosed from the ocean had been worn away. Hohenheim smiled with a strange, wistful sort of relief when he saw it.

"This where we first met," he said, voicing cracking a little as his eyes glistened. "Your mother and I."

Alphonse raised his eyebrows. "Here?" he asked as he and Ed pulled their coats tighter around them in response to the fierce northern wind picking up speed for a moment.

"Yes," Hohenheim nodded. He carefully lowered his wizened body to the edge of the inlet and sat there, taking off his shoes and socks to dangle his feet in the water. The shock of its iciness did not seem to faze him. "Pinako had met her in Resembool, and when she and her husband had to travel north on business anyway, they brought her along so she could see the ocean. I was standing here when Pinako spotted me and introduced us. When they left for Resembool, I followed." He closed his eyes and contentedly breathed in the salt being thrown at him by the wind. Then he glanced back at his sons, giving them a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. "I didn't mean to make it seem like I ever looked back."

"We know that," Al said gently, moving to sit next to Hohenheim. He, too, removed his shoes and socks, tentatively testing the ocean water with one foot. Abruptly, he pulled it back, throwing one hand on Hohenheim's shoulder to keep his balance, and laughed. "It's freezing! How can you just sit there like that?"

Hohenheim chuckled and shrugged.

It was only a matter of time before Ed joined them. Father and sons sat on the edge of the inlet, leaning back in reverent silence as they watched the sun sink behind the ocean. At length, the stars were revealed in the blackness of the sky, winking. Hohenheim's breaths became slow. He reached out his hand.

"She told me once that I was like a star," he said quietly. "Distant, and just one tiny speck among millions, but up close, one huge, powerful, fiery ball of gas." He chuckled with as much heart as he could muster. Then his tone softened. "She said she hoped that one day I'd find a way to fall to Earth, or that she'd find a way to reach me." A sigh and a smile. "I think she found a way to reach me long before I'd even gotten close enough to Earth to fall."

Something about the moment caused Ed and Al to keep silent and let their father reminisce in peace. After some time, Al wrapped one arm around Hohenheim's shoulders.

"I want you boys to understand," Hohenheim suddenly said, "that I love you more than anything."

When the two young men turned their gazes toward their father, they found him looking more haggard than they had seen him yet. Concern etched itself into their eyebrows and the corners of their mouths.

"Are you all right?" Al queried, absent-mindedly rubbing Hohenheim's back.

Hohenheim coughed but allowed a small grin. "Very." He looked back up at the stars and leaned toward them. Suddenly, he went into a coughing fit. Ed and Al worriedly pat his back, asking questions about what they could do to help. Once the fit had subsided, Hohenheim glanced at his palm that now held spots of his blood. His sons' eyes widened.

"We have to get you to a hospital!" Ed exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and bending down to grab his socks. He halted when Hohenheim fell onto his back, smiling serenely at the evening sky just above him. He reached out his hand again, or as much as he could with limited strength. Eventually, it was only his forearm he kept raised, trembling with a barely restrained violence. Finally, let that drop to the ground, too. Alphonse snatched it up, staring at his father with an anxious and shamelessly tearstained face. Edward, head spinning, tentatively took Hohenheim's other hand, eyes wide and filled with moisture that hadn't yet fallen.

"It was a long life," he said in a quiet voice graveled with blood. "A long goodbye. I hope it was not wasted. I hope I did what I wanted to do. I hope you can find something I'm leaving behind that's worth holding on to. I hope you know I love you...."

With that, his eyes stopped seeing that sky.

It was Al who screamed first. His desperate wail seemed to shake even the rocks on the shore. Edward took a few moments to follow suit, having to wait until his heart started pumping blood into his lungs again. He had no idea what words he was yelling at the heavens. There were many of them, but years later, he still could not recall them.

Despite not even knowing what thoughts and feelings and spilled out his stomach and throat that evening, Edward wondered if he had somehow managed to say everything he needed to say about the matter of Hohenheim's death. Alphonse seemed to feel the same way. Neither of them uttered a word at their father's funeral. They left the eulogies to those less attached. People complimented the brothers on how calm and polite they remained throughout the service.

Still, although Edward spent the next few days keeping up that calm façade, his mind almost felt as though it was eating itself for how it hungered for answers. If there were gods out there, they would have allowed Hohenheim more time, yes, even more time to add to his already unjustly long lifespan. They would have let Edward continue to make amends. They would have realized that Edward would forget to hug him and assure him of his affections. They would have seen that a couple of months of genuine closeness among the brothers and their father could not possibly be enough to make up for over a decade of anguish, loneliness, and confusion. Did they think it was funny that Edward was only just realizing all the things that could have been, and, indeed, should have been? Did they think his stupidity was something laugh at once they pulled the carpet out from under him and watched him agonize over his mistakes?

Whatever was or was not there to listen, Edward cursed, and cursed, and, in private, wept.

Hohenheim's last words kept echoing in his mind—I hope you know I love you.

And he remembered, too—I didn't mean to make it seem like I ever looked back.

And—I loved your mother with all my heart.

I miss her very much.

Some corner of Edward's mind rummaged through the darkness he thought he had discarded. It unearthed his familiar anger, that ever-present option of blaming something else so that he did not have to shoulder the burden of his mistakes alone.

So Hohenheim claimed to love them, did he? Love was supposed to be something all-powerful. If his father had loved him so well, he would have figured out how to go about finding a way to reverse his condition without leaving his wife and sons in such grief. And then he would have lived long enough to develop a proper, long-lasting relationship with his sons. But no, he had died with a smile on his face. A smile! He was happy! He had not really loved them at all!

With a start, Edward thought about himself. Expecting Hohenheim to meet such a standard of perfection in the name of love seemed hypocritical. He himself had known all along that he loved his father, and even when he finally admitted it to himself and let go of the past, he had not done a thorough job of showing how he truly felt. Anyway, if his love had been true, it should have enabled him to keep from developing such a grudge in the first place, even if he had been just a child.

All those absurd love songs, all those disgusting folktales, all those inane books, all those little and big things people did to show devotion to someone else—he wanted to scrawl in large, shaky letters, and to scream, that love wasn't real.

If this was the world he had to accept, then love was not real.

And if there were some way to make the idea of love tangible, Edward thought he wanted to hurl something heavy and lethal at it. He settled with throwing the chair of his study through the window.

When Winry hurried into the room to find the cause of the commotion, she gaped in horror at the shattered window and Ed's dark expression. Although she made no move to chastise her husband, he found himself yelling defensively at her. Defensiveness turned to accusation. Accusation turned to downright cruelty.

He was not even fully aware of what he was saying. But when he suddenly noticed how gradually Winry had straightened her shoulders and firmly closed her mouth, and how she was fighting to hold back the moisture in her eyes, his verbal onslaught slowed. When he had finally ceased completely, he watched one tear roll down her cheek before she turned silently and left the room.

And the way his heart seemed to melt and rain to his toes made him realize that love is, in fact, very real.

Still, if it was supposed to be so powerful, why had it failed him?

He remained cooped up in his study until he heard Winry put the baby to bed for the night, and Al retired not long afterward. At last, sighing and swearing he could feel actual bags forming under his eyes, Ed sauntered into his bedroom and wrapped himself in the blankets, thinking that all he needed to do was sleep.

"Sleep?" someone cackled. "You don't deserve to sleep."

Edward whirled around, trying to find the speaker somewhere in the vast expanse of white that surrounded him. Suddenly, a small boy with dark gold hair and eyes and a smug smirk appeared in front of him.

"You hated him."

"No, I didn't," Ed said, wondering why it was a whisper.

"You did."

"I didn't!" Ed insisted with all the volume he could find, but it still seemed to come out like a squeak.

"Yes. You did. You had to."

Ed couldn't speak at all now.

"You loved him by hating him."

After a moment of what it felt like clawing at his throat to find his voice, Ed exclaimed, "That doesn't make any sense!"

"Doesn't it?" the child cocked his head at him. "Isn't that what love is?"

There was another voice, the same voice, behind him. Ed fell to the ground in shock as he gazed up at the same boy, although this one wore a melancholy expression.

"But that shouldn't be what it is," the boy said. "It shouldn't require hatred to work, should it?"

"It doesn't require hatred at all," Ed said sharply.

"Well," the boy said sadly, "it sure doesn't make everything better, does it?"

It was then that Ed noticed Hohenheim's retreating back behind the boy. He leapt to his feet, reached out one hand, tried to yell, and ran.

He ran right into his fairy godmother.

"Well, Ed," she grinned, her sharp teeth a stark contrast the glitter and frills of her dress, though somehow, this did not seem unnatural to Ed. He tried to get around her, but although she did not move to stop him, she seemed to grow bigger, impeding his progress. "What do you wish to have granted for you this time? So sorry your mother didn't work out. And, oh, it's such a shame that you yelled at Winry. And remember that time that you let your son catch a cold?" She laughed as Ed grit his teeth and tried to tackle her, only succeeding in bouncing off her torso and falling on his rear end. "I suppose you want me to fix everything with your father now, don't you? And of course you shall have it, since you want it." She raised her sparkling wand and waved. Ed's vision became blinded by stars that slowly faded into black nothingness. For what seemed like an eternity, Ed's mind was completely blank, and a mouth with which to smile felt like a distant memory.

But then it felt as though someone was shaking him awake. The blindness was lifted, and Ed saw an old tuxedoed man with soulless eyes staring intently at him, holding a tray with a single glass of milk on it.

"Your perfection, sir," the man said, holding out the tray toward Ed.

"That's milk," Ed grimaced.

"I do apologize, sir," the man bobbed his head, and the milk disappeared. "How would you like your perfection today, then?"

The tray suddenly seemed to be overflowing with food, toys, books, photographs, kitchen utensils, weapons, all spilling onto the floor of a bedroom Ed abruptly realized was decorated with all manner of wealth. He stumbled backward when a mace almost landed on his foot.

"Please, sir, please tell me what else I can get for you," the old man pleaded as he brought his face closer to Ed's. "Tell me what I can do for you. I live only to serve you."

"D-Don't!" Ed spat as he tried to scramble away. "Don't get so close to me! I never asked you to serve me!"

At that, the old man's depthless eyes widened, his face spoke of endless despair, and he pounced on Ed, sinking his teeth into the young man's shoulder. Ed screamed and snarled.

But suddenly, the old man was beaten away by another man, who stood gripping the mace Ed had dodged earlier, letting the blood of his victim drip unheeded to the floor of what had been a bedroom just a moment ago. Now it was the hard ground of a lush green valley with a hot noon sun overhead. The man with the mace wore a foreign uniform complete with a cape and gold glitter wherever cloth was not required. An ornate crown rested on his head, and his square shoulders proudly displayed every badge of honor and distinction imaginable. Ed jumped when he noticed the army of soldiers standing behind the man, waiting patiently for their orders.

"Are you all right, boy?" The man asked gruffly, his chin seeming to be ten times larger and higher than Ed's stature.

"I'm f-fine," Ed stammered.

The man nodded. "Then hurry and find a safe place to hide. We come to conquer this land, and we shall not stop until every plant and insect bows to me!"

"Wh-what?!" Ed furrowed his brows, heart racing. "You can't do that!"

"Of course I can," the crowned man scoffed. "And I must. It is my destiny. It is all the gods intended me to do."

With that, he ignored Ed's further protests and mounted his nearby steed, throwing the mace to the ground to draw a bejeweled sword. With a war cry, he raised his weapon into the air and charged toward the mountains, slashing haphazardly, seeming to cut down everything and every person who appeared in his path despite not actually hitting most of them, and his soldiers raised their voices as they shot cannons and guns and set the wooded mountains on fire. Ed tried to run frantically to the battlefield, crying out at every person who collapsed in blood and every tree that shriveled in flames, but the wind seemed to stop him from actually moving.

When he abruptly fell on his face, he hurried to his feet to find a stately, well-groomed woman standing before a desk that had been conjured in front of him. She held several folders that she began setting before him, speaking in a matter-of-fact tone. "I've made calls to each of the gods and requested them to disable any future illness in your child regardless of whether you leave a window open or not. I've also cured Winry of any hurt she might have felt about your little outburst earlier. Oh, and your mother will come back to life tomorrow, and I've arranged for you to have lunch with her, after which you can make her laugh by pretending to be a ghost using one the sheets she just washed. And I don't know why you keep asking me to stop Hohenheim from leaving your home, because he never did. I went and checked on him today while I was out picking up your energy and reasons, and he was still there in his study, same as always. Oh, and while I was there, I turned back all your clocks so that you could decide not to go through with that human transmutation after all, so Al is fine."

Ed blinked. He gasped when he looked at his right arm and saw flesh. He sank into the chair that was somehow now just under him. "What's going on?" he breathed.

"Oh, really, now, sir, as if you don't know," the woman rolled her eyes. "This is no time for jokes. Anyway, you just get back to ruling the world. You have nothing to worry about. I've already taken care of all the appointments and business negotiations with the gods and made sure they agreed to everything you wanted," the woman continued, eyes flashing in her stern face. "Hopefully, they'll listen to you this time. If they don't, we'll bring them to court."

"C-Court?" Ed blinked, his pitch rising slightly.

Suddenly, the woman was a man in a smart business suit slamming a stack of papers in front of Ed. When he jumped in his seat and looked upward, he saw a judge sitting so high above him that his face was lost in the darkness of the night sky. The suited man turned toward the judge, jabbing a finger at him.

"Did this man ask to be born?" the man demanded.

An audience—the jury, perhaps?—that Ed could not see but seemed to feel and hear all around him exclaimed, "No!"

"And is there not a law that explicitly states that anyone who is born against their will or without being consulted beforehand is automatically granted the rights of the servitude of the gods?"

The people cheered, "Yes!"

"And isn't it true that the gods have consistently failed to uphold their end of the bargain?"

The people stomped their feet. "Yes!"

"I submit to you that it is true!" the suited man yelled passionately, slamming his fist on Ed's desk. "Edward Elric's thoughts and desires have been kept crystal clear throughout his life, but the powers that be have consistently ignored them! They have spurned him, mocked him, laughed at him, kicked him to the ground and hid him under boulders! They leave him completely alone and helpless!" The man gestured with almost wild emphasis at Ed's stunned form. "He is a mere human! He can't be expected to do anything himself!"

At the judge's contemplative nodding, the suited man turned his pale face toward Ed and winked. "They're buying it. Don't worry, we'll get you justice!"

Another suited man whose face was shrouded in shadows spoke, his voice deeper and more booming. "You realize, do you not, that in order to achieve your defendant's ends, the order of the universe shall be required to make certain sacrifices?"

Ed's defender hardened his expression. "Yes. But it is in the name of justice. This man clearly deserves it."

A small light appeared to reveal a tapestry behind the second suited man. It was woven with tiny threads bearing names, facts, dates, plants, animals, theories, and countless other objects and ideas that Ed could somehow read even from where he was sitting. Together, the threads made an array of colors and shapes that stole his breath, shook his mind, reminded him of that which he almost grasped entirely while in the Gate all those years ago....

An executioner seemed to come out of nowhere. With a grim expression, he inched a torch toward the bottom right corner of the tapestry. Ed's heart lurched, and he held out his hand to try to stop what was about to happen, but his feeble effort was fruitless; the threads were already burning away, burning, burning. The executioner threw water on it when the tapestry was three-quarters gone. In all its empty spaces, there grew a new tapestry, one that spelled out his name in sickly colors and clashed jarringly with what was left of the beauty of the former tapestry.

Oh, how the jury cheered.

Ed's defender raised his arms in triumph.

"The verdict is in," the judge announced as he picked up his gavel. Just as he brought it down, Ed shut his eyes tightly.

The hammering sound seemed to echo all around him, the reverberations seeming to grow stronger by the second, until his brain felt like it was banging around each side of his head. He plugged his ears and cried, "No! No, no! This isn't right! This isn't—"

"—right?"

Ed bolted to a sitting position. His hand slapped against Winry's thigh when he flailed, and he realized he was awake. Winry sat up next to him, furrowing her eyebrows as she scrutinized his face and lightly ran her fingernails up and down his back.

"Ed," she whispered gently, "I asked if you're all right."

Raising a hand to wipe the bit of sweat that had emerged on his forehead, Ed met his wife's eyes. "I was dreaming."

"And pretty badly, from the sounds of things," Winry said. "What was wrong?"

It suddenly occurred to Ed that he had not properly apologized for taking out his anger on her earlier. Studying how gracefully she moved, even just sitting there in bed, how regally she held herself, how the moonlight seemed to make her hair paler, and he wondered when was the last time he had actively appreciated how beautiful she was. He gathered her in his arms, squeezing her as closely to his body as he could.

"I'm sorry for earlier," he said, burying his face in the fabric of her t-shirt.

"It's all right," he heard her say as she wrapped her arms around him. "It's all right, Ed. It's okay."

"Why didn't you put me on the couch tonight?" Ed asked with half a chuckle as he pulled back to see her eyes smiling at him.

She made a show of considering her answer before simply shrugging. "Because."

The sweet, silent affirmation of mutual adoration was shattered with the burst of a tiny cry from the room across the hall. Rolling his eyes with a smile, Ed threw back the covers and went to locate his son, who was swinging his little fists as his only defense against loneliness and darkness. He lifted the baby from his crib, holding him carefully but affectionately against his shoulder, patting his back as he ambled back to Winry. She took the baby in her arms and shushed him, bouncing him gently.

"There, there," she cooed. "It's all right. We're here."

Grinning almost like an idiot as his whole body seemed to bubble over with warmth, Ed laid his head on his wife's shoulder. "I'm glad you didn't put me on the couch," he sighed.

"Well," Winry chuckled as she kissed the top of Ed's head. "I love you, silly."

Ed held her and their son close. "I love you, too."

"That doesn't make us perfect," Winry said thoughtfully, gradually relaxing her bouncing motions as the baby quieted. "But it's enough reason for us to keep trying." She turned her head to plant a soft kiss on Ed's lips. "It's why we keep moving on and believing in ourselves and hoping for better things, right?" Her smile made Ed feel like clay in her hands. She, however, did not notice that, going on with a philosophical air. "It's inspiration, motivation, and strength, but it also lets us remain human. I'm not giving up on you because of one little outburst." Her expression grew sadder. "Besides, I know how upset you've been about your dad."

Ed frowned. "Al. I've hardly talked to him since we got back."

Winry sighed. "He's been pretty upset, too. I've been worried about you both." Ed nodded but said nothing. She nudged him a little. "You should probably talk to him tomorrow."

Ed nodded again.

Not that he needed any prodding from his wife to want to talk to his brother, especially after waking up the next morning and seeing how dejectedly Alphonse sat the table, limply stirring his eggs without trying to eat any of them.

Withholding a sigh, Edward walked into the kitchen and lightly whacked the back of Al's head. "Come on, eat up. We've got things to do today."

Al didn't respond. He didn't even reach up to finger the spot on his head that had been whacked. Ed tried to hide his worry as he grabbed himself some bread and cheese and settled at the table across from his brother. They ate in silence for a while.

"It's so strange," Al suddenly piped up. "We went through all that trouble to find my body just so I could die in the end."

Ed furrowed his eyebrows and stopped chewing. "You're not dead, Al," he muttered around the bread in his mouth.

Al sighed irritably. "That's not what I mean. I mean I'll die one day. Maybe like Dad did. And we fought so hard to save a country full of people who will simply die another day, maybe in a way that would've been more horrible than what Father had planned. And even though he lived longer than anyone has ever lived, and even though he did want to die, Dad still died with regrets. No matter how you look at it," Al said as he roughly ran his fingers through his hair, stirring his eggs with more vigor than before, "life is too short."

After a moment, Al gave up on trying to take his questions out on the eggs and resorted to burying his palms in the hair on either side of his head, sighing deeply. Ed watched him calmly.

"Do you regret getting your body back?" Ed asked heavily.

Al's head shot up, and his eyes were widened toward his brother. "N-No! That's not what I meant! I...." He sighed again and studied his hands. "I am grateful. I'm happy to actually feel alive now. It's just...." Trailing off again, he smirked in embarrassment at Ed. "I guess it's just kind of scary. It's scary to think that it eventually ends, whether you're ready for it or not, and nothing can stop that. It's just part of being alive. And it seems that no matter how familiar I am with the concept of death, I just can't get used to it. It just makes you wonder what the point of all this is."

Ed nodded slowly. Silence fell. At length, Ed stood and poured himself a glass of orange juice, offering one to Al as well, who took one gratefully. They sipped thoughtfully, staring out the window at the world that was just cheerfully beginning the spring season.

"I loved Dad," Al said wistfully.

Ed glanced at him, then back out the window. His eye caught a bed of flowers just outside that were just budding. As he mused over the process of photosynthesis in his mind, he heard a cry from his son upstairs and imagined Winry tending to him with her calloused, capable, gentle hands. He smiled. "There are a lot of things I love. Dad was one of them. So," he stood, stretched, and held out his hand to his brother. "What say you help me pick up groceries from the market?"

Al smirked confusedly but allowed his brother to pull him up. "What do groceries have to do with anything?"

"Groceries have to do with everything," Ed said with mock firmness. "We've run out of a few things, so we better go get them today. It's no good to sit around thinking about how short life is if we're not going to do something about it."

Al raised an eyebrow at Ed as he slipped on his coat. "You're awfully chipper today, Brother."

"Winry!" Ed yelled up the stairs.

"Yes?" she replied.

"Al and I are going to the market!"

"Okay!"

"Well," Ed shrugged his shoulders as he turned back to Al, opening the front door. "Maybe the point of all of this is to keep going."

"Oh, that's...." Al rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger as he carefully closed the door behind him. "That's interesting." He smiled genially at his brother. "Please go on."

And Ed did go on, as they continued to stride down the hill.

This is dedicated to my dad: Feb. 22nd, 1953 – Nov. 5th, 2009. He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia almost exactly a year ago, underwent many treatments that eventually culminated in a very risky stem cell transplant, endured yet more treatments, and was finally declared to be in remission. However, only a few days after coming home, he developed sepsis and, without an immune system to fight it, and having already recorded his wish in legal papers to not have his life extended artificially if things came to that, passed away when his lungs collapsed beyond repair. This fic was inspired by parts of the eulogy I gave at his funeral. :) And yes, I'm all right. I may be many things, but a force to be trifled with is not one of them. :) I'm not one to entertain the more common attitudes about life and death, actually; I wasn't even as angsty about it as I depict Ed and Al being in this fic, but I wanted to offer some part of the explanation why, so that's what this fic is for. And it's for encouragement for others, too, of course.

I'm planning on writing a series about Hohenheim's development as a person, starting from when he first became a living philosopher's stone and ending with his death. So I'll explain that in more detail from his point of view whenever I get that done. I decided it was more important to complete this tribute before I finished anything else. :) It wouldn't have taken me so long if things hadn't been so crazy at my house lately. XD But I suppose the reasons for the craziness are pretty obvious.

And I know that it's possible that Hohenheim will die in the Promised Day battle, but I sincerely hope that he and the brothers have a chance to truly patch things up before that happens. :\ Oh, how I hope!

Also, I opted not to give the baby a name because I just felt that whatever name I might've come up with wouldn't have done him justice. Maybe I think of one I really like, I'll add it later.

Again, critique is always welcome! In the meantime.... Oy, I'll probably get less than six hours of sleep. I'm going to hate myself come morning. ^____^;;