Author's Note: Thanks a lot for the reviews. And please keep reviewing: ) I hope you like the way this story progresses, as you might have guessed there are still enough chapters to come before we are somewhat near the end.
I appreciate tips and criticism ,as well as praise of course, a lot.
(P.S.: Don't hesitate to have a look into my other FMA story/stories too. ;) )
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Hohenheim put the piece of paper in the plastic bag into the little case along with the letter he had received last time. Thouroughly he shut the lid and hid the case between his books in the big shelf standing to his right.
Dim light lit the room he spent hours researching in years ago. Now it was merely a room to store his research documents and various stuff they had no space for.
Slowly he brushed his fingers over a scroll lying across the desk. He took a seat and pulled the scroll close and slipped off the ribbon holding it together. Hohenheim reached for two heavy things to place on each side to prevent the scroll from rolling up again.
"It's their work." He whispered. "My sons work."
His fingers wandered along the edges of the pictures glued onto it. In the top left it started with a picture of Hohen heim and Trisha separate and winded down to a picture of their house. Little milestones in the middle indicated events, such as their first kiss, their first born son, their second son, the old pharmacy close to their first apartement. Hohenheim smiled at the sight of this.
"Mum, how did you meet Dad?" he recalled in his mind. Edward had just been 5 when he asked this question. "Afterwards Edward and Alphonse were so interested about this, they made this and gave it to us on our wedding day." He mumbeled.
Slowly he got up from his seat again leaving the scroll as it was. "Might that not be a nice picture for our living room?" he wondered.
It was around 2 am when Hohenheim finally went to bed. He would not need many hours of sleep. He did not like the bed this empty. He would rather not waste his time with sleep when his beloved wife might be scared to death somewhere. "Trisha.." he mumbeled before he fell asleep.
This time it was not the alarm waking him. Close to 7 am, Edward sat up straight in his bed. "Morning, Al." he mumbeled rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
Al remained quiet. "Al?" he asked once again. The younger didn't response again.
Checking on wheter his brother was still awake or not he jumpe dout of his bed and took a few steps closer to his brother's.
Gently he poked his arm waiting for a reaction. None came.
"Al, were you that tired? We need to get up!" Ed demanded and poked his brother's arm some more.
The younger, though, just grunted. After another few attempts of trying to get him awake he finally turned around. Cheeks red and eyes shiny.
"Al, are you sick?" Edward asked leaning closer with care.
"I suppose." The brown-haired mumbeled and wrapped himself tighter into his sheets.
"I'll go tell Dad, he shall bring you breakfast up later. I'll leave for school alone then." Ed said slightly depressed about the fact he would have to bore himself alone at school, sitting along during lunch break. "You are to stay put."
"Dad?" Edward yelled as he reached the end of the staircase.
"Yes?" the familiar voice came from the kitchen followed by clinking cuttlery.
"Al's sick." Ed said taking a seat.
"Oh really? I'll go have a look at him in a few minutes. You eat up and get ready for school. I'll give you a lift again today."
"Sure thing." Ed said taking the first bite of his toast.
"Edward, come downstairs, we are leaving!" His father called upstairs.
"Yeah I'm coming." He retorted and turned to Al. "Get better!"
With a last smile to his brother he left the room and ran down to his waiting father.
"Hurry up."
"Don't worry." The younger retorted grabbing his school bag.
"And what about the jacket?" Hohenheim pointed at the blue ajcket still hanging on the coatstand.
"I don't need it." Ed said quickly and ran outside.
"Oh and if you do!" his father argued.
"Hey, weren't it you who said to hurry up? We are late!" Ed chirped.
Hohenheim just grunted and threw the door shut locking it. "Whatever."
Today's schoolday was destined to be boring. Al was not by his side and his schedule did not give him much hope on an eventful day either.
The class was filling pupil by pupil and Ed took his usual seat close to the back of the class.
The seat next to him would most likely remain empty today since his classmate was still sick. Ed sighed at the sight of his classmate still missing. "It's getting boring without you buddy." He whispered brushing away a few hair strands blurring his vision.
"May I sit here next to you?" A girl's voice came to his left. Ed's head spun around. He faced a girl with blonde hair that reached her waist nearly and blue eyes. She reminded him of Winry somehow.
"Yes of course." Ed subconciously moved the chair away for her to sit. "You are new here, right?" he asked once she had sat down.
"Yes I am." She smiled. "I switched schools."
"I'm back home." Hohenheim announced dropping his keys into a little bowl on the cupboard.
He went to pick up Al's breakfast and served it to Al on a tray. "How are you feeling?" he asked placing the tray on Al's bedside table.
"I'm ok, don't worry." Al smiled not too convincingly.
"Yes sure." Hohenheim retorted. "Here, eat up.
"Dad?"
"Yes?" the older man said making Ed's bed.
"Can you bring me the letter you received yesterday. The new hint I mean. I'll figure out it's meaning."
"No way Alphonse, you are sick, you should rest." His father retorted smoothing Ed's beedsheets.
"But I've got nothing else to do anyways. Colonel Mustang will visit you in about half an hour. Go have a nice chat about old times or whatever with him. I'll do the work." Al smiled sitting up straight.
Hohenheim sighed picking up the tray. "Alright, alright. I'll bring it up. But!" he paused. "You will not work on it for too long and get some sleep too."
Al nodded.
Hohenheim brought the new hint up to Al and just a minute later someone knocked onto the door.
"Nice to see you again, buddy." He smiled at the sight of the raven-haired man standing in the door. "Come inside."
"How are you doing?" Roy asked hanging his dark blue trenchcoat onto the coat stand. He was wearing a striped shirt and black pants. "Fine, now that I got to see you in civil clothes." He chuckeled.
"Nice to see you are amused." Roy retorted sarcastically trying to act serious.
"Cut it out. No need to keep the serious mask among friend. Thaw up." Hohenheim playfully punched his friend's arm and brought him a drink.
"So how is the research going? Going good?" Mustang asked taking a sip of his cooled drink.
The elder shook his head in a dissatisfied manner. "I'm not an further. Al is curretnly working on it, even though he is sick. I could not stop him."
"That's just ok." Roy retorted his left arm hung over the chair's back.
Hohenheim though sat on his chair demurely. He got up from his seat and strode across the room.
White, muttering oaths, the blonde man took his seat again.
"What's the matter?" asked the other in a calm voice.
"I'm wondering, as to how much time we have." Hohenheim's head sank into his palms.
The staircase creaked quietly as Al came downstairs. "I figured it out." He announced holding up a piece of paper in his right and the plastic bag with the hint inhis right.
"This time it wasn't so hard." He added handing the letter to his father.
"Thanks, my boy. Go get some sleep now, leave the rest to us."
Al opened his mouth to speak again but Hohenheim raised his hand. "No."
Alphonse stammered but subsided into silence nodding only. "Ok." The young boy went back up into his room.
Hohenheim waited for the door's shutting-noise before he began looking at Al's notes.
"What does it say?" Roy asked curiously leaning forward.
"9 Alchemists were afraid of what to create, one did lousy, then they were only eight." He read out.
"Were afraid of what to create…" Roy repeated.
"I'm clueless as to what this would refer to."
"Any ideas about places where they would experiment?" the Colonel reached for his glass once again and sipped.
"Well." He hesitated. "There used to be an old cellar as far as I was told, somewhere hear close to this area."
"And where is that to be found?" Roy looked at him inquiringly.
"I'll drive you there. Let's move." Hohenheim got up from his chair and left Al a note on the kitchen table. "I'd better not wake him."
Roy followed him outside. "Do you think we need to gain admission to enter there?"
"Hah." Hohenheim chuckeled. "Most wine cellars there are out of use. People abandoned them, or rather, were forced to abandon them. Noone is ever coming back there to check on them. Families are poor there you know. Not even wine can help them out in this case anymore."
"I can see your dissatisfaction with the hint. Might there be something else?" Roy asked softly.
"No." he paused. "No there isn't. I'm just wondering what might await us there now. You see, a whole army could have been captured there, it's not like anyone would ever find out."
Roy nodded understandingly. "I'm prepared."
The area looked similar to Resembool. Much green, trees and little houses. The further they got the outskirts though, the more desert-like it look. Less houses, less people and a lot of neglected things lying around underlined the scenery.
"So this is it you think?" Roy asked taking a look around. "There's like nothing here. Seems like the right place for doing sick things." He stomped his feet on the ground watching the dust arise.
"Yes, I'm sure."
The wooden door creaked loudly as it was pushed open. Light moved across the room from the door.
"It's cool here." Roy pointed out closing the jacket he had changed to before.
"Yes, the air is very moisturized in these cellars."
"What's this smell?" Roy asked covering his mouth with his left sleeve as they turned in to their right.
"Smells like." Hohenheim hesitated. "Rotten human flesh."
Roy's right leg bumped into something. His switched on the torch he brought with him and pointed it on whatever was lying to his right. His eyes widened.
"Hohenheim!" he yelled.
"What-. I see. So there was a dead after all again. Seems as if this rhyme does come true."
Mustang looked at the motionless body in horror. Hohenheim bent down to have a closer look. "Of course."
"What of course?" Roy asked trying to ignore the bad smell lingering in the air. He made a disgusted face.
"The dead body. Some say it has something beautiful. As a photographer you would never have to worry about the human you want to capture to move. They are the perfect models."
"But why-, why is the body like this?" Roy stammered.
"Like this?" he chuckeled. "They used magnesium it seems to cover the body in white, make the skin look angelic. The red lipstick on the curved lips. The big contrast to the rest." Hohenheim explained gently. "Comestics, the best way to hide what is lying underneath. People used it so many years ago already to embellish the dead."
"I did not know there were women in this organization too." Roy said. He had gotten back from searching for something to cover with. He pulled a bog jute-bag over the body.
"There were. A few, but there were. More women wanted to join us as time passed. Inside this organization, they were an equal to men. The tricky way to attract women."
"Let's go." Roy ordered.
"Want to leave the dead here this way?" Hohenheim inquired.
"We can send someone out here later. There's no use in rushing. After all, the dead don't run away."
"So there is still the matter to be cleared what the first part of the rhyme refers to." Mustang said staring into the distance.
"I wonder, though, wheter this is still of any importance. We found the dead body we were led to. After all, it's not us investigating the manner, we are just the chessmen that they play with."
"What now then? Wait for the next hint? Are we just going to chase after them blindly?" Roy wondered.
"No." he drew a little piece of paper, blood stained paper, out of his pocket. "We already have our next hint. Even if we find out what they did there, what they were afraid of. It would be nothing than a sick experiment with human lives. One failed, and had to die for the sake of the experiment's fail. Whatever it was, they must have abandoned it. No use to stir in the past." Hohenheim did not raise his head nor meet his friend's eyes while talking.
"Just because you used to be one of them, does not mean you commited a crime." His friend comforted him.
"That's for me to know, but for the others to find out. So far, I'd say this part of my life never existed. My only gain from this year was the knowledge that there is more to science and religion than the eye meets."
"I hate to say, my dear friend, but you sound like an old man." Roy laughed.
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I hope you liked this chapter. It might have come out a little boring. I'm looking forward to some reviews. So please review If you read this story.