Page Turners and Cliff Hangers

Know what's more awkward than a silent seven minute walk to a cafe with someone you don't particularly know, trust, or think you even like?

Eating a silent lunch with someone you don't particularly know, trust, or think you even like.

That's what we were doing. Ed sat across from me, with Al at the side of the table between us. I twisted a fork around in my pasta, resting my chin on my free hand and staring with very little subtlety at Ed. It wasn't unprovoked this time - in fact, he'd been staring with an equal intensity since we first sat down.

I really wanted to know what he was thinking about me. It wasn't good, I imagined, but it couldn't have been too bad, either. He was eating with me. We were working together, however temporarily. I assumed that, if he was feeling anything toward me, it was akin to what someone feels when they're trying to solve a riddle that just doesn't make any sense. Confusion, frustration, impatience. A little threatened. That was definitely it. I was a strange girl with strange excuses, and I was showing up at some pretty weird times. Anyone would regard me in the way he was.

Seeing Al shift in his seat, I pursed my lips. Well, almost anyone. I glanced at him with an imploring look, and he finally spoke up. "So... Where do we start?"

I shoved a forkful of pasta into my mouth. It gave me a few seconds to think while I chewed on my food. It also irked Ed, who seemed to have been waiting for this conversation ever since I agreed to help them. Once I swallowed my bite, I waved my fork around in the air as I said, "Well, I'll need some information from you two, first."

"Information?" Al asked, "On Marcoh?"

When I nodded, they shared a cautious glance. Ed turned, answering for his brother. "How about you just help us find a man named Tim Marcoh?"

My annoyed stare only made him narrow his eyes at me. "Even dogs need a scent to start with," I told him.

His shoulders dropped as he realized I was right, at least to some extent. Looking down at his food, he paused to think over what he knew, and what he was willing to share. After a moment, he lifted his head. "Marcoh's hiding from the military. He has some medical experience. He's probably using a different name."

I nodded, my eyes wandering away from him. He fell silent, assuming I was thinking over what he'd just listed off. Really, though, I was planning my next step. Mustang sent me here to make this easy and quick, but they'd already been discovered, and there was a big bulky State Alchemist roaming the streets to prove it. I thought over ways to get to Marcoh's without being seen, but none of them would work - at least as long as Al was with us. My eyes lowered onto the boy, who had ordered a plate of food and proceeded to drop pieces of it into his armor and make chewing sounds.

I knew the truth about what was inside that armor. I'd had suspicions about him, and the moment I knocked on his back during Ed and Mustang's assessment was the proof I needed. His 'eating' was an unnecessary show for my sake, which only made me feel guilty for even thinking about sending him on a wild goose chase to distract Armstrong.

"So?" Ed murmured, a biscuit making his cheeks puff out like a chipmunk.

Stabbing my fork into the remnants of my food, I said, "I need Armstrong off your backs before I can help you."

The boys sat a bit straighter, clearly not expecting to hear that, of all things. Face scrunching up in frustration, Ed swallowed his biscuit. "Just let us worry about Armstrong, all right?"

"Nuh-uh," I shook my head, "I need to know for sure that we're not going to be followed."

"That's funny, coming from you," Ed muttered.

I leaned forward a little and quirked a brow. "You really like that word, huh?" He glowered and leaned forward to argue, but I beat him to it. I met his stare with one of my own, my casual demeanor vanishing.

"You don't trust me. I don't expect you to. But between the three of us, I'm the one with Marcoh's best interests at heart. So while we're all here looking for him, you're the one who has to prove your intentions to me. Okay?" I ended my question with a bright smile.

Ed was thrown off his game by this. He blinked a few times, processing what I'd just said. Trying to decide whether he should argue or give in, or just leave the cafe altogether. His food had been abandoned, something I had a feeling was a shocking feat for him.

From beside us, I heard Al. "He helped you, didn't he?" We both turned our attention to the boy who was staring directly at me. "When we first heard about Marcoh, it was because he helped a girl in Xenotime. If this is where he's living, he's probably doing the same thing around here. You're trying to protect him because he helped you. Is that it?"

My blank stare lasted a few more seconds before I broke out in an amused grin. "Well look at you, Alphonse! Keep that up and you could be a journalist some day," I mused, pointing my fork at him.

If he could have, he would have blushed. He rubbed the back of his metallic neck, laughing nervously. "Thanks, I think."

With the tension gone, for the most part, Ed sighed. Up until now, I was the shady one with the unclear motives, and he was the one who had to watch his back. At least in his mind, anyway. But now, I was flipping that on its head, and he was just starting to come to that realization. "Look, we're not here to hurt Marcoh," He started, his tone a little deflated but entirely sincere. "I don't care why he's hiding. I don't want to do anything to him. I just have questions that need answers."

"About the Philosopher's Stone," I urged.

He stiffened at this, uncomfortable with my casual mentioning of what appeared to be a sensitive subject for him. "Yeah…," He nodded.

It was my turn to sigh. When it came down to it, I didn't think they had sinister motives. I knew Ed wasn't finding Marcoh for the military. I knew his reasons. Mustang told me his reasons, before I'd even met the Elrics. And I didn't think Mustang would lie to me. It wasn't a matter of trusting them.

I just wanted an excuse to keep them away. I wanted them to slip up and give me a reason to stop them. Al was right, in a way, but there was nothing either of them could have said to change the way I felt about the whole thing. I had a feeling it was the same for them. Nothing I said would dissuade them from looking. When it came down to it, I was only deciding whether or not I wanted to be there.

"Then I'll take you to him, I guess," I finally said.

They especially weren't expecting that. If they had been holding anything when I said it, I'm sure those items would have been dropped. Ed's back straightened, his eyes widened, his shoulders tensed up. Al's arms slid off the table surface, his armor shifting against itself and drowning out his faint gasp.

Al was able to form words sooner than Ed. "You know where he is?"

"Of course I do," I started with a smile. My chin still on the palm of my hand, I lowered my fork and said, "He's my teacher."

. . .

The bomb I dropped back at the cafe was not something the boys could quickly recover from, it would seem. They asked question after question, wanting to know how I knew Marcoh, and exactly what sorts of things he taught me. I guess once they realized I was closer to this than they first assumed, they were no longer hesitant when it came to talking about the Philosopher's Stone around me, because they also wanted to know if I knew anything at all about his work on the stone.

I was not helpful.

Marcoh's work wasn't something he liked to discuss - and I warned them about this as we walked down the road, trying to lose Armstrong.

"It's not like he taught me the secret to the universe or anything," I rolled my eyes as we turned down another alley way, "He uses his work to help people, but he's never explained it to me. Whatever you expect me to share, I don't have it."

"Sorry if I don't believe you right away. You haven't exactly been the most straight-forward person we've talked to, you know," Ed said beside me.

I stopped at the end of the alley, looking down at him with big eyes. "I've been completely honest, thank you very much," I told him, pressing a hand against the center of my chest, "And I'm hurt, Ed-o. Really."

He frowned. "Just take us to Marcoh, already. We've lost Armstrong by now."

A moment of silence passed before I said, "Okay, correction: I've been mostly honest."

"…Riley?" Al urged me to continue. I could feel his nerves even in the empty shell he resided in.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I looked both ways down the road. "It's been a few years since I've been gone. I don't remember this flower shop being here."

"Riley?" Al repeated.

From the side of my eye, I could see Ed's frown deepening. He stared at me with incredulity. "Don't tell me you're lost."

"If you weren't hounding me with questions for the past ten minutes, I wouldn't be!" I exclaimed, facing him finally.

Offense flashed across his features. He lifted his fist for emphasis, yelling back, "If you knew where you were going, my questions wouldn't have changed that!"

I sputtered out several attempts at a response, but could form no solid argument. Behind us, Al spoke, having stepped up to the role of mediator. "We'll just ask around and maybe you can get your bearings, Riley."

We glanced to the younger Elric, and I nodded my head. "Great idea! Let's do that, Alphonse," I replied, turning on my heel and leaving the alley. Ed muttered under his breath about me as we pressed onward.

We walked through the village side by side, asking various people for directions. As the brothers soon learned, Marcoh had taken up a nice new identity while he lived here. Doctor Mauro, as he was now called, was pretty well liked by everyone. He healed those who were considered terminal, patched up serious wounds, soothed ills that kept farmers from working. Children especially liked him and the bright red light that came from his hands when he worked on people.

During one of our stops to ask for directions, Al managed to get tangled up in a favor for a child whose cat was up a tree. Ed and I waited by the roadside, watching a suit of armor reach up into branches and try to help Queen Snowball, who was very displeased with the situation, and her young owner who was even less happy about it all.

"I've been thinking…," Ed began.

I glanced over, raising a brow. "Just started, have you?"

He twitched, but chose to ignore my comment. "It seems pretty strange to me that someone who was taught under Marcoh would just be a journalist."

I snorted. "Are you telling me I should have aimed higher? Like what, a State Alchemist?"

"You were mentored by someone who worked on the Philosopher's Stone, and now you're with the military," Ed paused to deliver a hard stare my way, "You aren't here just to write articles."

Our staring contest lasted a few tense seconds, before I reeled back. "I don't care about the Philosopher's Stone," I said as I looked back out at the field. Al was halfway up the tree now, the little girl pushing his foot higher up the trunk with little to no avail.

The bluntness of my comment must have struck a cord in Ed, because he remained quiet, watching me. "I know you must think being his mentor means something wonderful, but it really doesn't. Marcoh kept his work away from me. It was his one rule. I wasn't even allowed in the room when he was healing people. Maybe it's because I was so near it all that time and I never learned about it, but I just don't care about the stone."

This was the truth. All these stories we'd heard from residents of the village, all these miracles - as everyone around here called them - were products of a science I didn't understand. I tried to get Marcoh to explain it to me, on multiple occasions, but he never did. It was the one thing I was never able to convince him to do, in fact. He was easy enough to manipulate, when you're a young child with puppy eyes, but the stones were always strictly off limits.

As I continued to speak, I could tell Ed was relaxing a little. Whether it was the fact I wasn't teasing or being intentionally vague, I didn't know. "Then why are you following us?"

I almost laughed. Ed was irrational, rebellious, and hot-headed, but he was not stupid. I turned to look at him, grinning, as I said, "Because this is going to be one hell of a story."

A loud crash in the field drew our attention away from each other, and as Queen Snowball assaulted Al's metal chest with a flurry of angry scratching, I knew this was going to become a conversation we'd have to pick up at another time.