"So where did you find this next hint?" Roy asked curiously "Pulled it out of the woman's mouth?" he chuckeled exiting the car.
"You know, it was in her shirt's neck. You did not dare to have a close look so it was for me to get ahold of it. Unless you would have prepared to search for this in a woman's low-neck." Hohenheim smirked and strode to his door.
Roy pouted. "No way!"
Hohenheim reached the door and turned around to face his friend once more. Roy had collected himself and began "I wonder though. Why they made the body look this way. As if she was sleeping. Her left hand caressing her hair, the legs angled."
His voice held an emotion it had never held before.
"I told you. It's all photography. Their way to show respect to the deceased body." Hohenheim waved him good-bye and left for this house.
"Just what are you dragging me into?" Roy whispered smiling softly. He leant against his car watching his friend dissapear inside the house. "I hope you two wont turn out your father's way. The world just can't bear with those that have great knowledge it seems."
"How was it? What did you find out?" Al had ran up to his father as soon as he heard the door fall shut.
"My, my. Awake already?" he smiled at his son and patted his shoulder. "You sure are full of energy it seems."
He pulled a chair forward and sat down, a sigh escaping his lips. He retold the story to Al. In the meantime Edward arrived inside without anyone noticing. He lent against the doorframe and listened to their conversation.
"Edward."
Ed was taken aback. "I did not notice you enter." His father smiled gently.
"It's ok. I listened all the time. So we are already prepared for the third hint?"
"So it seems." Hohenheim nodded facing the floor. "But." He looked from Al to Ed a smile forming on his lips. "We shall first have a relaxing day today." He said briskly.
Edward smirked. "You are just hiding the fact you miss your wife. You fool." He muttered throwing his schoolbag onto the floor.
Suddenly Hohenheim's expression froze. "I'm sorry kids, but you will have to party on your own as of now. There's someone I need to visit." He got up from the chair and walked into his office.
He shut the door and took a look at the books in his shelf. His fingers brushing over the backs of the books. "Marcher…" he mumbeled.
"What fools people are who leave the straight path. A clear conscience – that's all one needs in life. With that you can face the world and tell everyone that interferes with you to go to the devil." Hohenheim mumbeled. "But do you have a clear coinscience, Mr. Marcher?"
He took out one of the books and dusted it off. He thumbed it through until his thumb came to a rest at the letter M. Marcher. The man that he had worked with for a month. A fairly interesting, yet mysterious man Hohenheim had to admit. His finger went down the page until he stumbeled across the right phone number. Yes this one it is.
His hand reached for the receiver to his left without looking up from the book. Sternly he stared onto the number and started to dial the number calling up Mr. Marcher.
"Hello? Mr. Marcher here." A man's voice came.
"Mr Marcher, it is me, Hohenheim."
"Oh Hohenheim."
"Dad has shut himself into his office. Apparently he is making a phone call, I can not seem to call up anyone else at the moment." Edward sighed and dropped te received back onto the phone.
"Who would you want to call up anyways?" the younger one asked curiously shifting away a couple of papers. "Just my classmate, he is still sick." His head rested in his palm as he gazed out of the living room window.
"What if you go for a walk brother? It's sunny for once." Al suggested.
Ed grunted. "Yeah, I'll be back soon."
With a certain petulance, Hohenheim pulled the bell and asked that Mister Marcher shall be sent to him. It was a hassle to find his house, hidden so carefully between all those trees.
His eyes roamed over the maiden's figure in the doorway, demure in her black dress and her neatly-parted black waves of hair and her modestly-dropped eyelids.
"Come inside please. Mr Marcher is waiting for you already."
The door shut, the man on the opposite waved Hohenheim to one chair, settled himself in another and turned a gaze of acute inquiry upon his visitor.
"It's been a while, hasn't it Hohenheim?" Marcher spoke sitting in his big green armchair wrapped in satin.
"I knew it was just a matter of time until people would be interested in everything that we wanted to leave behind." Said Marcher with a sudden change of tone. "You told me a lot on the phone already. But what is there that you really wish to know?"
"I had my suspicions from the start. I chose to be their chessman. But tell me, did they ever lead you to the end? Did they ever let you finish the game? You, who was once part of those creating the games, tell me."
"What you call game so nicely, is not much of a game in fact. Doesn't one who plays a game, have the threads in his own hands to a certain extent?"
Hohenheim nodded thoughtfully.
"But you do not have the threads in your hands, do you?" Marcher chuckeled. His voice was old and sounded smoky. He chocked a few times and continued "Let me tell you this. Out of all the victims they ever gave a chance to get what was taken away from them back, none ever really tried. As far as I know there has never been someone who even understood to interpret the signs."
Marcher paused and got up from his chair. He strode around the desk facing Hohenheim.
"I can not help you."
Hohenheim noticed that he was hiding something under his sleeve. Without drawing any attention to himself he approached Marcher and shook hands with him exchanging what he held in his hand.
"I thank you for your words, Mr. Marcher. I shall ponder on investigating any further. This will be our last talk."
"For sure." Marcher said rather depressingly. His white hair waving in the breeze of wind that came inside.
The maid threw him a ciquettish glance. Her restless haggard face sharpened and tense.
"Good bye, Mr Marcher."
Hohenheim arrived back home. He had yet not dared to take a look at what he was given.
There was still the piece of paper they found at the woman's dead body to translate.
He reached the porch. The sound of his heavy boots stopped as he sat down on the last step.
Hohenheim flung his head back and reached for the piece of paper he had just received. Darkness had once again stroke the earth. Slowly he unfolded the letter.
My dear friend.
By the time you will have read this, I might not be alive anymore. I am spied on. You are smart and sure understood my submessage. My death is what I deserve, I took part in the experiments in the wine cellars in the outskirts. Even if you haven't heard about them, the name "Blue Eye" might still ring a bell. This is the only hint I can give you on this.
Do not stray away from your path. Watch out and go on. You will be led to your goal.
Your friend,
Markus Marcher
"What's he on about?" Hohenheim wondered. "Blue Eye. So this is what has been researched there. Genetical modification. They wanted to change an embryo's genetics creaing children the way parents would want them. How pathetic. Isn't it, Colonel Mustang?"
Roy had been standing in the far off distance listening to the elder's words. "And I thought it was of no value to us." Roy chuckeled.
"Even I can be wrong." Hohenheim said impassive.
"And what about the new hint? Found anything out yet?" Mustang asked taking a seat next to him.
"Not yet. I did not even show it to my sons, unless they found it by themselves." Hohenheim smiled and got up. A sigh escaped his lips. "I haven't felt this old in ages. Seems as if getting up from the porch is getting harder and harder ever year." He frowned.
"No Hohenheim. It's the porch getting old, not you. I'm not looking any younger next to you if I try to get up from this cranky thing." Roy laughed.
"Know what?" Roy asked. "Let's get started on the last hint. I'm in the mood for that right now." He stretched his arms to the sky and went inside.
"Alright then." Hohenheim replied and followed impassively.
It took them hours to translate the letters. Their faces burried between books and a few cups of coffee. Hohenheim hadn't even noticed that his son had been out until late at night and sneaked past him around 11 pm.
"That happens when work becomes your life." Said Edward, sounding more prim than ever. Both bursted out in laughter. Edward came to a rest lying on his stomach. "Know what?".
"What?" Al yawned.
"I never thought I'd go back to liking Dad this way again. It's as if a new side appeared." Ed smiled and burried his face into the cold soft pillow.
Hohenheim came back with another bottle of wine in his hands. "Cheers my friend!" Roy yelled and they clinked glasses.
Roy sank back into the armchair smiling soft and satisfied.
The noise of two men laughing and talking and – singing? Woke Edward. He turned around to face the clock. "3 am." He whispered "Damn them." He pulled the bedsheets over his head and continued to sleep.
Edward wandered down the stairs rubbing his eyes. His hair was open and messy. No smell of food coming from the kitchen. Dissappointed he was already ready to go back upstairs and sneak back into his warm soft bed. To his right he suddenly noticed a wine bottle. Following the strong wine-scent lingering in the air Edward found the living room empty.
"Dad?" his words echoed.
A hand rose from behind the couch. "I'm here." A dark voice grunted.
"You need to drive me to school." Ed retorted.
"School? Forget it. You are staying home today." His father grunted again his hand moveing back behind the couch again.
"Alright…" Ed stuttered.