Chapter Text
1904
“Trisha, I have to leave. Will you wait here for me?”
“Of course.” Trisha picks her way across the grass, sitting down on the swing beside Van on the ground and rocking gently on her toes. “What’s going on?”
Van doesn’t respond for a long time, just staring out across the Resembool vistas, looking at the odd lights burning in the houses in the valley, and at the Rockbells’ place just next door.
“Something bad,” he says eventually. “It’s… him.”
Trisha nods her understanding. It took her a long time to get Van to tell her the full story of his immortality and how it came to be, and when he did finally trust her enough with it, it had certainly knocked her sideways.
“So you’re going to go and stop him from doing whatever it is that he’s doing?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Van sighs. “I don’t know whether he can be stopped. What he’s done is so far-reaching I don’t think it can be undone. But there might be a way to mitigate it even if I can’t stop him completely and I can’t just leave it alone when I know what the outcome will be. If there’s something I can do to protect everyone, to make sure that you and the boys never have to live through what I lived through - or not live through it, that’s the more terrifying part - then I have to do it.”
It’s definitely one of the longest speeches that she’s ever heard him make, and Trisha can hear in it the agonising that his brain is currently going through. She reaches out, squeezing his shoulder, and he leans in against her legs with a long, shuddering breath.
“I understand,” she says, stroking his hair and playing with the long strands that never seem to be able to stay in the ponytail. “But Van, you know that whatever you have to do, you don’t have to do it alone.”
When he looks up at her, his eyes are sad and tired and so very, very old, but there’s a brief flicker of hope in them as if he can’t quite bring himself to believe what she’s just said.
“Trisha, this might take years.”
“I know. I think that’s all the more reason for you not to do it alone. The boys are still so young, and you said it yourself that you haven’t spent all that much time with them recently whilst you’ve been working all this out. You know I’ll never hold your extended life span against you in any way, but you can’t deny that it’s warped your sense of timing slightly. If you leave now, and don’t come back for years, you’ll miss so much of the boys’ precious childhood memories. I know,” she says, when he tries to protest, “that you think you don’t deserve to be a part of them because I know you think you’re some kind of monster, but I also know that’s a load of rubbish.”
Van gives a huff of laughter. Sometimes, telling it to him straight is the only way to get through to him when he starts overthinking things. In fact, most of the time telling it to him straight is the only way to get through to him. Any pretence to subtle flirtation had gone completely out of the window when she had been trying to make her interest in him known before they started their relationship back in the day.
“If you leave for years, Van, you won’t be coming back to the same house that you’ll be leaving. I’ll still be here, barring some catastrophe, and the boys will still be here, but they won’t be the same little boys. We won’t be able to just start again where we left off. I know how much you want to be able to live a normal life and maybe going off and doing whatever it is you have to do to stop him will give you that opportunity, but this life you’ll leave behind won’t stay static. You’ll miss out on however many years of it that this takes.”
Van shakes his head. “There isn't another way, Trisha. This has to be done or the entire country is doomed.”
“You really do get caught up in your own head, don’t you? I’m not telling you not to do it. I know you have to do it, and I know that you’re probably the only person in the entire country, if not the entire world, who has the ability to do it. I’m saying that you don’t have to do it on your own. You don’t have to leave me and the boys behind whilst you go off on your solo quest to save the world.”
Realisation finally appears to be dawning, and Van’s brow creases in the way that Trisha has long since learned means that the souls are being very noisy and he’s having to concentrate to parse through all their yelling to find his own thoughts.
“You want to come with me?”
“Yes. Think about it. If you leave, what are you going to tell the boys about why you’re leaving?”
Van grimaces and Trisha rolls her eyes. “You weren’t going to tell them, were you? You were just going to quietly vanish. What am I supposed to tell them? ‘Dad left for a good reason but I’m not entirely sure what it is?’ Come on, Van. They’re only small but they deserve the truth. If you just up and leave for seemingly no reason then they’re going to think they’ve done something wrong to make you leave.”
“I know. I have approximately a quarter of a million souls telling me that leaving is a terrible idea and the other quarter of a million telling me that bringing you and the boys with me is an even worse idea. This could be dangerous, Trisha. I haven’t got the first idea what I might be going up against. Apart from a genocidal maniac who looks like me.”
“We’ll work it out together,” Trisha says. “I may not know much about alchemy and I may not have the same breadth of life experience as you have, but don’t you think it might be useful to have an outsider’s perspective? If you go alone and you end up on the wrong track, then you’ll have no one to set you straight. Well, you’ll have the souls, but with all the love in the world and no offence meant, their perspective of life is slightly skewed from their current, well, position.”
“That’s true.”
“And…” Trisha tails off, now out of practical reasons and into the personal, selfish ones. “And I’d miss you. I don’t want you to be lonely. You’ve been on your own for so long and now you have me and Edward and Alphonse, and you don’t have to be on your own anymore. You’ve got a support network in place. Maybe a small one, sure, but it’s a support network nonetheless. You don’t have to sacrifice that. And I don’t want to have to spend years without you, not knowing if you’re ok, not knowing what you’re doing, but knowing that you’re facing it alone when you don’t have to.”
Van stays silent, the little thinking line still furrowing his brow, and Trisha sighs.
“I will wait for you here with the boys if that’s truly what you want me to do,” she says. “But I’ll also follow you to the ends of the earth if you want me to; if that’s what it takes. As long as we’re all together, I know that we’ll be all right.”
Van takes her hand, pressing a kiss to the palm before squeezing it tightly.
“Thank you. I don’t know what I did to deserve someone as wonderful as you in my life, but I’m glad that I managed to do it.”
“Come to bed,” Trisha says. “Sleep on it at least. The world won’t end sooner if you set out to save it a day later.”
Van gets to his feet and hands her off the swing, and they make their way back inside the house together.
“I’ll think about it,” he promises. “I’m just concerned. If he’s doing what I think he’s doing, then he might want me. He might need the souls. If he finds me - if he finds you, and the boys, and he knows that you’re related to me… I don’t want to think about what he’ll do.”
“Van, for all you’ve lived a transient life and moved around a lot, you’ve lived here in Resembool for the best part of thirty years and put down roots here. Don’t you think that if he wanted to find you, he’d have done it by now?”
Van narrows his eyes. “All that serves to tell me is that he’s probably already found me and is biding his time, which isn’t doing anything for my worrying.”
Trisha shrugs. “Isn’t that all the more reason for us to come with you? If you’re worried about what he might do to us, knowing that we’re leverage over you in that respect, surely we’re better off sticking with you.”
Van just sighs, but he doesn’t protest, and he lets her lead him up the stairs to bed, which at least gives Trisha hope that he is actually considering her suggestion.
The next morning, Van’s side of the bed is empty when Trisha wakes up. She’s usually the early riser out of the two of them, but this happens frequently enough that it doesn’t worry her. For a moment she wonders if he took off in the middle of the night without telling her, but she knows that he respects her too much to do that, especially in light of their conversation the previous evening. His suitcase is still under the bed and there’s no evidence of him having packed to leave, and sure enough, as she makes her way downstairs, she can hear him moving around in his study. She decides to leave him to it as the boys stir and begin to cause a commotion, and she goes into the kitchen to get started on breakfast.
Ed and Al tumble in with their usual enthusiasm, completely unaware of the paradigm shift that’s about to occur, although in what way Trisha isn’t entirely sure yet. They happily discuss their plans for the day, the games they’re going to play and the adventures they’re going to go on in the yard. Trisha just listens with a nervous sense of trepidation. Perhaps she was too hasty in suggesting that the family all goes with Van. It would take away any sense of normalcy that the boys have built up over the last few years. It would take them away from Winry and their other friends here in Resembool and break all their routines. But surely having their father vanish would disrupt their sense of normalcy just as much, especially if they don’t know why or where he’s gone. It’s true that as they’ve got older, Van’s kept his distance more; he was much more comfortable with them when they were babies, although the old sense of not wanting to taint them with what he is has always been there.
He’s still there though. He’s still a presence in their lives, even if it’s become more and more shadowy over time.
She turns her attention back to the stove and gives the oatmeal a final stir.
“Ed, could you tell Dad that breakfast is ready, please? He’s in his study.”
Ed rolls his eyes. “He’s always in there.”
“I know, honey. But he’s doing important work.”
Ed gets down from the table, still grousing, and heads out into the corridor. When he still hasn’t returned over five minutes later and his and Van’s oatmeal is going cold, Trisha ventures out to find what on earth is keeping them.
X
Ed has mixed feelings about Dad’s study. There’s always a kind of air of the forbidden about it. Dad’s never said that he’s not allowed in there, and he’s never been mad when he’s found Ed in there, staring at all the maps and charts and transmutation circles all over the walls and the desk. All the same, though, Ed always gets the feeling that he’s not supposed to be in there and not supposed to be staring at all those things. And considering the amount of time that Dad spends shut up in there, working on whatever it is that he’s working on - Mom never seems to know - well, the study door can feel like a massive wall between him and his dad sometimes.
He knocks on the wood timidly but gets no answer.
“Dad? Breakfast is ready.”
He’s delivered the message, that’s all he needed to do. He can go back and have his own breakfast now and not worry.
But, like with all things that carry a sense of the forbidden, there’s something about the study that’s incredibly enticing to a five year old, and he carefully turns the doorknob, peeping inside.
Dad’s sitting at the desk with his head in his hands, and he doesn’t appear to have noticed Ed at all, so Ed chances to take a few steps closer until he’s level with the desk and looking at something that appears to be a cross between a map of Amestris and a transmutation circle. It’s covered in Dad’s tiny, spidery handwriting, which Ed can recognise but not really read. There’s some Xingese characters in one corner too. Mom says that Dad lived in Xing before he came to Resembool, so that makes sense. Every so often, there are scribbles that are presumably words but not in any kind of language Ed recognises.
Curiosity wins out over everything else.
“What’s that?”
“Huh?” Dad startles out of whatever daydream he was in and looks down at where Ed is pointing on the map. “That’s Dublith.”
“No, the writing. Is it writing?”
“Yes. That’s my language.”
“You have your own language?”
Dad gives a weird kind of slightly strangled sounding laugh that’s slightly alarming. “Well, I suppose I am the only person who speaks it anymore. That’s the language of the country I was born in. It’s my mother tongue.”
Ed sticks his own tongue out, going cross-eyed trying to look at it. “Do I have Mom’s tongue? Everyone says that Al has Mom’s nose.”
Dad smiles. Just for a second, but he definitely smiles. “No, it means the first language you learned to speak. Your mother tongue is Amestrian. That’s the first language you learned to speak. Mine is Xerxian.”
“Oh.”
Ed continues to look at the map for a while. “Are you taking a trip?”
Dad doesn’t say anything for a long time, but then he nods. “Yes. I have to go and do something only I can do. To… To keep you and Al and Mom safe.”
“Oh. Can we come?”
Dad gives that slightly strangled sounding laugh again, and Ed is just a little bit worried that his father is going mad. He returns his attention to the Xerxian writing, and he wonders what it says.
“Ed? Van? Your breakfast is going cold.”
Ed turns to see Mom in the doorway and the prospect of eating cold oatmeal immediately chases all thoughts of Xerxian and going on world-saving trips with Dad out of his head. He bolts back into the kitchen and starts eating his oatmeal so quickly he nearly chokes on it, whilst Al just stares at him as if he’s grown a second head.
“Are you ok?”
Ed nods, but the thought that Dad might be going away doesn’t sit entirely comfortably in his stomach. Or maybe that’s just the large amount of lukewarm oatmeal he’s just shovelled in there.
By the time he’s finished his oatmeal and stared at his milk for a few minutes, very annoyed at the fact that Al has drunk his and he really doesn’t want to be compared to his little brother but he really, really hates milk, Mom and Dad still haven’t come out of Dad’s study. Al twists around in his chair and looks out into the corridor.
“What do you think they’re talking about? I don’t think it’s breakfast.”
Ed thinks about the map again, and the foreboding feeling comes back.
“I think Dad’s leaving,” he says eventually.
“Why?”
“He said he had to keep us safe.”
“Oh.” A couple more minutes pass in silence and then Ed gets down from the table, Al toddling along behind him as they make their way back towards Dad’s study. The door is closed again, and Ed presses his ear up against it. Mom and Dad are talking quietly, but he can’t really hear what they’re saying.
“Are they talking about cabbages?” Al whispers. “I think Dad said something about cabbage.”
“Don’t be silly, why would they be talking about cabbage?” Ed can’t think of any reason why cabbage would need to be talked about in secret behind closed doors. Unless the thing that Dad needs to keep them safe from is a giant cabbage. Which is certainly a rather alarming thought, but he pushes it to the back of his mind. There’s no such thing as giant cabbages. Is there? They do have some strange fruit and veg in Xing; sometimes the fruit man brings some from Eastern City. Maybe there’s a giant cabbage on its way across the desert and it’s going to crush everything in its path beneath it, and -
Ed forgets that he’s leaning against the door and falls into the study when Dad opens it. Al tries to pull him back and they both end up in a heap on the floor at Mom and Dad’s feet.
Mom just sighs. “Boys…”
“Are we under attack from cabbages?” Ed asks, as the first thing that comes into his head. Mom and Dad just look at each other before shepherding them back into the kitchen. The slightly foreboding feeling returns again, although that might be the result of speed-eating oatmeal and then almost somersaulting into Dad’s study. Once they’re all sitting around the table again, Mom is the one to speak.
“Edward, Alphonse, how would you feel about us taking a trip for a while?”
“Where to?” Ed asks, at the same time as Al asks “Will we be safe from cabbages?”
“We’d go all over the place, all around the country,” Mom says. “It’ll be an adventure. And I think cabbages are one thing we won’t have to worry about.”
Ed thinks about this for a while. On the one hand, he likes the idea of going on an adventure, and he’s always been fascinated by the world outside Resembool. He loves looking at all Dad’s maps in his study and wondering about what all these other mysterious places might be like. On the other hand, it would mean leaving Winry and their other friends, and the safety and comfort of their own home. On another hand, Mom and Dad will be there, so it won’t be all bad. Mom and Dad will make sure that they’re ok.
“Why do we have to go?” Al asks.
“Your dad has some important work to do,” Mom explains. “He can’t stay here in Resembool to do it; he’ll need to travel around the country. And because this work might take a long time, it might be better if we go with him, so that we can stick together as a family.”
“What about the kittens?” Al asks. “Who’ll look after them if we go away?”
Ed thinks that the kittens Al found at the bottom of the garden will probably be fine, because they have a Momma-Cat of their own who looks after them more than Al does, but he doesn’t say anything.
“We can ask Winry’s mom and dad to keep an eye on the kittens. I’m sure they’ll be all right on their own with Momma-Cat. They’re getting to be quite big now after all.”
Al doesn’t seem completely convinced by this.
“We won’t be gone forever,” Mom continues. “We’ll keep coming back, and you can visit Winry and the kittens and your other friends.”
It’s too big a thing for Ed to really process. He has the feeling that if they don’t go with him, Dad will go on his own. For a moment, Ed wonders if it would make all that much difference because they don’t see him all that much even now as it is. But completely gone for a really long time? Yeah. They’d probably notice that he wasn’t around, and it wouldn’t really be fair on Mom. She’d definitely miss him.
“Ok,” he says eventually. “As long as we can come back and see people.”
Mom smiles and nods. “I’ll make sure that we do.”
X
It’s strange to think that they’re actually doing it. It’s taken a few days to get everything sorted out and ready for the trip, and Sarah’s made no secret of the fact she thinks they’re a few radishes short of a picnic. Trisha accepts that. There’s no way she can explain the full facts behind their decision to suddenly up and leave and see the world; not without explaining everything about Van’s history. Still, although she thinks her best friend is mad, Sarah does not begrudge them going and she’s agreed to keep an eye on Al’s stray kittens. The entire Rockbell family is at the station to see them off. Pinako is deep in earnest discussion with Van; sometimes Trisha wonders if she suspects Van’s true nature. She’s known him the longest out of all of them, after all, and she must have noticed that he’s never aged in all that time.
Ed and Al are promising to send Winry postcards and souvenirs of everywhere they’ve been to, and Trisha promises to keep in touch with Sarah as well. For a moment, she thinks about Van’s worry that his doppelgänger will find them and use them in his schemes somehow, and she wonders if keeping up these lines of communication with Resembool is a good idea in case they put their friends in danger. They’ll be leaving a trace of their path around the country with every postcard they write, and if the Dwarf in the Flask has his fingers in as many pies as Van seems to think he has, then he probably has someone monitoring the postal service.
Maybe they shouldn’t take the risk. Both she and Van have gone back and forth on the idea so many times over the last few days that it feels like she’s on a see-saw at the fairground.
“For the record, I still think you’re all completely nuts but I can see why you’re doing it, in a very weird way.” Pinako has come over with Van, shaking her head in good-natured despair, which is an expression that people who know him often wear when it comes to Van.
The train pulls into the station. No passengers get off, although Joe the stationmaster starts unloading the freight wagons at the back of the train. They’re the only ones who are getting on, ready to head into Eastern City and start their journey there, for want of a better place to start it. This thing that Van is undertaking is so big that it’s hard to know where to start at all. It’s kind of all-encompassing, but they have to start somewhere, and taking this first step of their journey seems to be the best way of going about it.
Ed and Al are leaning out of the window and waving long after the train has left the station and Winry can no longer be seen waving back at them on the platform. Trisha can just about see the little white house in the distance, and for a brief moment, she’s already homesick for it. Life was easy there. Well, nothing about life with Van is ever plain sailing, but it was familiar and every day was the same. Trisha has always wanted to travel, but she’s never had the opportunity in the past. Before meeting Van and having the boys, she’d never been able to pluck up the courage to take the leap and leave the town where everything was always the same but it was always so comforting in its sameness. After she’d had the boys, there was never the opportunity. Now she has the opportunity, even though it’s not come about in quite the circumstances she expected it to. A part of her feels bad for turning this into her grand adventure when she knows what’s at stake for Van, but in a way, that’s part of why she has to turn it into a grand adventure. It’s so scary and all–encompassing that she has to find the bright spots in it wherever she can, and for now, she’ll settle for wondering what the first leg of their journey will hold.