#tim marcoh

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated:Teen

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[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [AO3]

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Eleven

“The Elrics have gone now. Sorry to have kept you in hiding whilst they were here, but with everything else that’s happening at the moment, I think that this would have been a little bit too much.”

“All right, thank you for letting me know, Tempe.”

“How is he?”

“A couple of broken ribs, but he’ll be fine.”

“Thank goodness for that. How are you holding up, May?”

“I’m ok, Miss Tempe, thank you. And thank you for dinner.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, I think he’s waking up, Tim.”

Scar wrestled himself back into consciousness. His chest ached and his head was pounding, but he was definitely alive, even if he had no idea where he was or how he got here. He touched the bandages around his chest, both arms still intact. 

“Welcome back.”

The two strangers who swam into view in the corner were Amestrian, and he was here in pain and bandages, and all of a sudden he was back in Ishval, back in the field hospital with Fahim’s arm attached to him and the Rockbell girl’s parents and…

“Mr Scar! Don’t sit up, you’ll hurt yourself.”

May popped into his field of vision, and he calmed down a little. He was not in Ishval. He was in Central, and May was here and she was safe. 

“How are you feeling?”

The man came over to him, and as he reached out to check the bandages hadn’t come undone with his sudden movement, Scar saw the telltale tattoos of a State Alchemist on his palms. He smacked the man’s arm away.

“Who are you? Where are we?”

“I’m Dr Tim Marcoh, and we’re under Central City.”

“You’re a State Alchemist.”

“I was; I’m no longer licensed.”

Their eyes met then, and Scar felt the unadulterated rage boil up in his veins, reaching out with his right hand almost on instinct until he saw May out of the corner of his eye, and he stopped short. Marcoh followed his eye-line and straightened up. 

“Tempe, Mr Scar needs to speak to me alone, could you take May outside please?”

“Of course. Come on, love.”

May and the woman, Tempe, left the room, and Marcoh kept holding Scar’s gaze, his face calm and accepting. 

“I was a State Alchemist, and I was in Ishval,” he said levelly. “I was responsible for the deaths of many of your kinsmen, and you have every right to kill me for my crimes.”

He would have done it. It would have been so easy. He could see now that the doctor wouldn’t put up a fight but would accept his fate quietly, but he could also see that he wasn’t actively seeking death. He had put the choice in Scar’s hands, but he had not actively sought out this confrontation. 

“How did I get to be here?”

“You had collapsed in the tunnels after the homunculus Envy tried to squeeze the life out of you. Miss Chang found you, then Shao May went looking for help and found me. I brought you back here. We’re currently somewhere under Central Command.”

Scar took a moment to process this, then turned back to Marcoh. “What did you do to my people in Ishval?”

“I was involved in a project seeking to create the Philosopher’s Stone. The process requires the sacrifice of human lives to provide power to the Stone, and I sacrificed Ishvalan lives.” Marcoh sighed. “The stone that I created ended up in the hands of a State Alchemist named Kimblee, the Crimson Lotus Alchemist; and once that happened, well, the massacre that followed was swift and brutal.”

Scar remembered the blast that had killed his family and given him this arm of vengeance, the sheer raw power that could not have been natural. That must have been Kimblee. He looked at Marcoh again. It would be so easy to destroy him, but, uncharacteristically, Scar hesitated. He thought of May outside, and the woman who had been tending to his wounds with Marcoh. They at least were innocent, and he did not want to have to explain his actions when they came back to find blood and death here. Especially not to May. 

The doctor’s words floated back to him. You have every right to kill me for what I did. It was the same thing that he had said to the Rockbell girl, just a day ago. She had hesitated too, then, and they were both still alive after the encounter. Something made him want to deliberate a little more before he delivered down judgement. He remembered the Ishvalan Elder who had taken care of him in Eastern City. There is no forgiveness for wanton murder, but we can still endure.

“How do you live with yourself?” he asked Marcoh instead.

“Because not living is the easy way out.” Marcoh sighed. “It would be very easy to end it all, but it would not be a fitting show of remorse. My death, especially at my own hand, would not bring back those I killed. It might bring catharsis to their families-” he nodded to Scar, “but it would not do anything constructive to make up for the lives I took. It would not help people. It would not be an atonement. So, although not living would be far easier, I choose to live, and to do what I can to try and atone for my crimes in a way that is helpful and constructive.”

“By hiding under Central Command?”

“I haven’t always been here. I was working in a village in the east until a few months ago. Circumstances conspired to bring me here. Tempe’s family has been very gracious in letting me stay as long as I have, but I like to think that I’m helping them in return for the safety they have given me. Perhaps, once you meet them, you’ll be able to help them too. There is something very wrong in Amestris, and there has been since long before the Ishvalan Genocide.”

Scar did not want to think too much into what Marcoh was implying, but he was reminded of May and her constant affirmation that something was not right in this country, that there were souls buried deep in the ground.

There was a knock at the door, and Marcoh looked to Scar. He nodded slowly. There was a stay of execution for a while, but he remained undecided on what Marcoh’s fate would be. It would be courteous to listen to what his hosts had to say, if nothing else. 

Marcoh opened the door and a tall man with golden hair and eyes stepped into the room. 

“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said to Scar. “How are you feeling?”

Scar just stared at the newcomer, trying to pinpoint him. He had only seen that colouring on two people before; Edward Elric and the stranger who had stepped in and fought with him back in Eastern City before the military had arrived to break up the fight, saving Edward’s life in the process. Although he had not really paid it any mind at the time, there was something about this man that made it clear he was not Amestrian. 

The Xerxians were supposed to have been touched by the gold of the sun before they had been wiped out, and May had kept chattering on about the Sage of the West, the Golden One who had codified Xingese alchemic practices into the alkahestry she now used. 

He pushed the thought aside, settling for more immediate questions instead. 

“Who are you people?”

“My name is Van Hohenheim, and I am an alchemist. You’re amongst friends here, there’s no reason to fear. All of us have been living in the shadows of society for a long time. I trust you are not too shaken from your encounter with Envy?”

“I’ll survive.”

“I can help with the pain in your chest, if you’d like. I think you have some broken ribs there.”

Unsure of the man’s intentions, Scar nonetheless nodded. Hohenheim reached out and gently pressed one hand against his ribcage; there was a spark of alchemy and bright white pain for a second, the same as when May used her alkahestry on him, but then the pain was gone, and he could feel that the ribs were no longer sore. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’d like to ask you about your array, if I may. I’ve been speaking to Miss Chang about her alkahestry, and from what she’s told me, I think that your array may be a mixture of elements from both Amestrian alchemy and Xingese alkahestry.”

Scar’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I think that the fate of the country might rest on it.”