Chapter 1

An elderly woman stood at the front of her classroom, overlooking her mid-day history class. The sight before her was just pitiful. Some of the students were sleeping, others doodling on their respective desks. The teacher reached up to place a shaking hand on her hair bun, sighed, and let her weary eyes rest on an attentive young woman in the second to last row.

Please don't look at me, Julia thought as Mrs. Foss smirked and stole a glance at the other side of the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mrs. Foss cleared her throat before continuing. "I would like to bring it to the attention of the class that this April is when you will be taking your State Exams. I hope you all remember that you must pass this exam in order to graduate high school…"

Julia looked to the right at her blonde friend Karly, who was biting her fingers in what looked like panic. To her left, Julia saw her friend Lissa, black hair veiling her face as she drew on her desk in discontent. The brunette ruffled her hair with her left hand and turned her attention back to the front. Mrs. Foss was smirking again.

"Let's see who can answer these questions…" Smacking a ruler on the palm of her hand, the teacher paced the length of the front of the classroom, surveying her students as if they were victims. "What year did Führer Roy Mustang become a colonel?" Silence… "In what year did Alphonse Elric die?" Julia bit her tongue so hard she thought her mouth would fill with blood. "How about, what is today's date?"

Karly raised her hand, bouncing in her seat, making eager ooh-ooh sounds. "January 7th, 1980!" She finally shouted. Mrs. Foss looked directly at the girl, nodded, and sighed.

"How about," Rubbing her eyes, Mrs. Foss sighed again. "What country is this?"

Lissa looked up from her work of art with a smile. "Amestris." She said proudly with a thick Drachman accent. With a quick laugh, Mrs. Foss took a stack of papers out from under her podium.

"Since you all seem to know so much about our fine country's history, why not quiz on it? I'm sure you'll all pass." Mrs. Foss said with pure sarcasm, glaring around the room. "Wake up, you fools!" The entire class jumped.

Julia sighed, smiling at the irony as she mumbled, "I knew the answers to those questions."

Karly, having heard the mumble, leaned over to Julia as their fuming teacher began passing out the papers. "How come you didn't answer her hard questions then?" Julia smiled weakly and picked up her pen.

"Last time I answered all of her questions, she gave us a quiz. I was trying to save us the hassle of a shameful defeat."

When the bell rang, releasing the sullen students to lunch, Julia stood with her friends, taking their graded quizzes on the way out. "How did you guys do?" Julia inquired once they were in the student littered hallway.

"D for Drachma." Lissa stated with spite, tearing her quiz in half.

"C for – aw darn, my name begins with K!" Karly whined at her paper as if it had named her. The young women turned to Julia who simply stated that she didn't want to talk about it. Lissa and Karly fell back a step in order to glare at the back of Julia's head. "A for Amestris, right?" Karly sang with a smile.

"Yeah…" Julia sighed, ending the conversation as she took her place in the lunch line. After finding their seats and a few minutes of eating in silence, Julia looked across the table to Lissa, who usually ate heftily, with concern. Lissa was in the midst of rearranging the food on her plate, staring at it with a furrow. "What's wrong, Lissa?"

Lissa sighed, stabbing a piece of meat with her fork. "If I fail the State Exam, my parents will be disappointed. All of their work will mean nothing." She had looked to Julia and Karly when she'd uttered the word nothing. Julia took a deep breath.

"You've only been in Amestris for a few years. Of course you don't know as much as–"

"That is no excuse! I should have studied more. Understood more. But I didn't. Now I will pay the price." Lissa snapped, jabbing the table with her finger. Julia waited until her friend was calm before continuing.

"We have a little over three months left until the exam. What if I helped you study?" Lissa looked up. Julia smiled at the hope in her eyes. "And Karly can join us!" She carried on, waving to the blonde next to her.

Karly looked up from her food, beaming. "Oh, yay! Study group!" Lissa smiled, though Julia could see she still wasn't fully convinced.

The rest of the school day continued slowly. Once the final bell rang, Julia made a quick stop at her locker before heading out of the school. Picking up Lissa and Karly at the entrance, the girls walked out into the snowy world, heading for home. They made small talk until they came to Julia's house.

It was a quaint, single story house with steps leading up to the front door. Julia said good-bye to her friends, telling them to come over at noon the next day so they could begin studying. Lissa and Karly agreed and waved as they continued down the street. Carefully walking up the slick steps, Julia pulled her house keys out of her pocket and let herself in. She closed the door, knocking the snow off her shoes before taking them off.

It was painfully silent in the house, so Julia called out "I'm home!" The empty house responded with silence. From the front door, Julia passed the living room to her right and the dining room and kitchen to her left, which were all open to be seen by anyone who had just walked in. Across from the kitchen was her room. Down the hall, on the right, was her brother's room, across from it was the bathroom, and at the end was her parents abandoned bedroom.

Slipping into her room, Julia placed her school bag on the floor next to her desk, which was across the room from the door. To the right was her bed and to the left was a dresser. Julia quickly took her books, notebooks, and homework out of her bag and dropped its contents onto her desk with an audible bang! She stared down at the work, contemplating.

"I can do this work tomorrow while I'm helping them study. It is the weekend after all." She resolved. It was now 4 o'clock, meaning she had an hour of downtime before she needed to start dinner. Julia calmly walked out of her room and sat on one side of the loveseat, turning on the television in front of her.

After flipping through channels for a minute, she found a trivia game show. The host came on with a broad smile as fake as a mirage. "Hello, everyone! Great to see you all here. We're gonna have fun tonight!"

"I bet." Julia said lazily, staring blankly at the screen. And so the game began. It was a typical trivia game show. The host would ask a question, the contestants would answer, and someone got some fancy, expensive prize at the end. Julia smiled, acknowledging the fact that she had answered all of the history questions correctly before the contestants even had time to think of an answer.

At 5 o'clock the show ended and she was forced to cook dinner. Julia turned off the television as she stood from the couch and made her way to the kitchen. Once there, she pulled a medium-sized pot out from the bottom cabinets, a spoon from a drawer, and a box of noodles from an upper cabinet. While the pot was filling with water, she lit the stove and opened the box of uncooked noodles.

"Oh, what modern science has become without Alchemy. Simply amazing." Julia smiled with amusement at the thought of Alchemy before placing the pot on the lit burner and twiddling her thumbs as she waited for it to boil. After 20 minutes of cooking and a packet of powered cheese, Julia had a steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese.

Julia quickly took her place at the wooden, hand-made table for four near the front door. She stirred the noodles around for a moment before looking up at the empty chairs next to her. "Mom, Dad, Maes, how were your days?" Julia mumbled, taking a bite of her food. "That's great! Mine was just wonderful. I aced a pop quiz in history. Oh, and Lissa, Karly, and I formed a study group for the State Exam." Julia said happily before continuing to eat. The rest of the meal was spent in silence.

"Thanks for the talk." The young woman said sarcastically as she stood and walked over to the kitchen. She placed the dirty dishes into the sink and proceeded to clean, dry, and put them away. Being it was still early and she felt spunky, Julia brought her homework into the living room. Sitting on the loveseat again, Julia turned on a documentary about Xing and the dead science of Alkahestry. By 8 o'clock, she was finished with her homework and tired of watching a documentary on something she felt she knew enough about so she turned off the television, put her books back in her school bag, and took a shirt and sweatpants into the bathroom.

After changing, Julia washed her face. As she was brushing her teeth, the telephone rang. The sound pierced the quiet home and stopped Julia in mid brush. She listened as it rang, pursing her lips around the toothbrush in her mouth, white foam sliding down her chin. Julia gripped the edge of the sink until the ringing stopped. As she was finishing up, the telephone began ringing again. This time, Julia ran for the telephone, taking a deep breath before lifting the corded receiver off its hook.

"Hello?" Julia said with caution.

"Why didn't you answer the first time I called?" The deep voice of a man assaulted Julia's ear.

"I was brushing my teeth." Julia said after a short sigh of relief. She heard a sharp tapping on the other end of the line as if her brother were rapping a pen on a desk.

"So that's your new excuse for ignoring m–"

"You're such a jerk, Maes!" Julia yelled into the telephone, throwing her free hand into the air. "If I really wanted to ignore you, I wouldn't have answered at all! Why do I even talk to you anymore?"

"Relax, Julia!" Maes chuckled. "I'm just messing with you. You've gotten so serious in your old age."

Julia smiled lightly. "I blame the lack of an authority figure at home. " Maes broke out into a fit of laughter.

"Ouch! That one stung." It was silent for a long moment before Maes took a long breath. "Listen, I know it's been hard the last two years with me being in New Central–"

"No," Julia cut him off. "Don't worry about me, really." She said confidently, tightening her grip on the receiver. "I really enjoy seeing you and the Lieutenant on holidays. I don't think I could stand seeing you more than that!" Julia made sure her laugh sounded convincing. I wish I could see the look on your face, she thought, listening to the silence. Finally, she asked, "So, when will I see you again?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. I'm taking off a whole week prior to your State Exam. Someone has to make sure you relax." Julia smiled as Maes chuckled. "And…"

"And?" The young woman questioned, looking around the inane house as if she could possibly find the answer there.

"I have something special planned…but we'll talk about that when I come home. Okay?"

Julia let the line go silent again. It was so silent. In the house. On the telephone. In the depth of her being. It was so still, so quiet. Tears welled up in her eyes as Julia placed her free hand over her mouth to keep herself from hyperventilating. "What's wrong?" Maes asked worriedly, calling Julia back to the conversation.

"Nothing." She said weakly, pulling her hand away and smiling sadly as tears rolled down her face. "I can't wait to see you." There was more silence. Julia knew that he could tell that she was breaking down.

"Get some sleep, Julia. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Okay. Goodnight, Maes."

"Night."

With that, Julia lightly set the receiver down, letting her sobs spill out of her chest like rolling thunder. She was so relieved that her brother had called and not some high ranking officer, ready to tell her some default speech about how Maes had protected his country valiantly but sadly, he would never be coming home. Yet, Julia was alone, so very alone that she could barely contain her sadness anymore.

Wiping her face with her hand, Julia flipped the light in the hall off and shuffled into her room. Julia crawled into bed and proceeded to do what she did almost every night – cry herself to sleep.