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Chapter 2: The Other Her
Someone knocked at the door as Natalie and James were busy talking for their plans for their wedding in June. Natalie heard her roommate rush around frantically upstairs, and she nearly laughed out loud. James had finally had a day off, even though he had a day off every week, it seemed like an eternity to Natalie. She decided to answer the door since someone was a bit too busy trying to fix their hair.
"Yes? Can I help you?" Natalie asked. The stranger was a male who looked around 19 years of age, and had his long blonde hair tied into a ponytail in the back. He was wearing pretty heavy clothing, but she couldn't blame him since it was February.
"Hawkeye…?" Natalie heard the stranger ask himself quietly, but not quietly enough.
"Excuse me?" Natalie asked in return.
"Oh, sorry, I think I have the wrong house…" He said as he trailed off and looked behind her in shock again. "Mustang? No way…" He asked himself again.
"Who are you looking for?" James asked as he came up behind Natalie and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Ed I'm so sorry! I woke up late this morning, thanks to somebody." Julia said as she eyed Natalie who was still at door.
Julia had just rushed down the stairs and came around the hallway to the door where she knew Ed was, since it was already a little bit past 10 o'clock. She walked up to the door wearing a long maroon skirt and a matching shirt that had no sleeves. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she reached into the closet to get her coat.
"How was I supposed to know you had to get up early for a date?" Natalie responded to her roommate who had blushed intensely at the comment. "Oh I get it; this is why you walked in the door yesterday with a big smile on your face. And here I thought you were checking out that mechanics' store again."
"First of all it's not a date. Second of all I did go to the store again. And third of all Edward here is taking me to his factory where he designs rockets with my cousin that I went to meet yesterday." Julia answered in a huff. "Well James, I'm going to have to wish you luck being stuck in the house with Natalie all day planning for your wedding. Let's go Ed." And with that she took Ed's hand and dragged him in the direction of the factory as he just stared in bewilderment at their conversation.
"Who were those two? And a wedding?" Ed asked, still shocked from the two people he had just met.
"Oh I'm sorry, that was my roommate Natalie Hanson. She's engaged to that man back there. His name's James Lawe." Julia answered after she had realized she forgot to do the introductions earlier. She had totally left her manners. "They're getting married in June, and I'm their maid of honor since I've been friends with Natalie since before The Great War."
Ed had to mentally laugh at that. The Mustang and Hawkeye in this world were getting married, and he couldn't help but wonder what happened with the Mustang and Hawkeye he knew back home. Ed always thought there was something going on between the two, and this just totally proved it. But it had only been three years since he left Amestris and came to Earth, so they probably weren't engaged yet. But he could only wonder from where he was. It seemed this gave him even more motivation to build those rockets and try to find a way home.
Edward and Julia arrived at the factory at half past ten, and Ed started right away with explaining everything to Julia as they traveled to Ed's desk in an office he shared with Alfons. Once they arrived inside the office, they found Alfons already sitting there with a cup of coffee in his hand, and two more on Edward's desk.
"Thanks for the coffee Alfons. Here." Ed thanked Alfons as he handed a cup to Julia as he sat down. He pulled out some blueprints in his desk drawer and began scribbling down notes and ideas he had come up with the previous night.
"Thank you."
"Now Julia, I want you to be careful here. There's no telling what might happen, and since you're a girl you could get hurt easier." Alfons warned.
"Oh, so you mean that there's more of a chance of this factory collapsing because Julia's a girl? Come on Alfons, you make it sound like women can't do anything." Ed said looking up from the blueprints of the rocket they were designing. "Julia knows what can happen around machinery. She has studied some of it before am I right?"
"Of course she has, but nothing this complex." Alfons responded, glaring at Edward. Just then, Alfons started coughing violently and both Edward and Julia looked away. Once he stopped a minute later, Ed sighed heavily and looked back to his blueprints.
"Fine, Alfons is right. Julia, you need to be careful. But Alfons, you don't have to say it like the building has a higher chance of collapsing just because there's a girl here." Ed finished off without taking his eyes off the blueprints. Alfons gave a frustrated groan and walked out of the office to finish off the rocket's calibrations.
"Thank you Ed. I've never heard any man stick up for women's rights before." Julia said as Edward kept browsing through the blueprints.
"If you look here, you might be able to tell that there could be a few problems with the engine maintaining a stable entropy since the mass of the metal is so heavy." Ed said, ignoring Julia's earlier statement. Edward began explaining the knowledge he had acquired in rocketry in the past three years.
"Well, maybe the fuel you're using can't sustain enough energy when the rocket is launching. To get to outer space you'll need some type of fuel that can sustain the energy needed." Julia proposed, and Ed smirked when he realized she had just thought of something that neither Alfons nor he would have ever figured out in a million years. The power of women…
"You're right." He said.
The two of them almost forgot about lunch later on when Alfons came up with two trays of food for them. He noticed how Julia and Ed were working on a new blueprint for the engine of the rocket using another type of fuel.
"Wow Ed, I never thought of using this type of fuel before. Good idea." Alfons complimented with a smile.
"Thanks but it wasn't my idea. Julia came up with it." Ed responded and Julia started to blush a little bit but it went unnoticed because of the smile she also wore from the compliment. Alfons just looked at them like they were crazy and then burst out laughing.
"Good one Ed! Man you're hilarious!" Alfons said as he laughed and walked out the door. Julia looked like she could kill the closest thing near her, which happened to be Ed. She picked up a wrench near the table and gripped it tightly.
Oh no, not the wrench. Please not the wrench! I thought I was safe from flying wrenches in this world!! Ed pleaded in his mind as Julia got angrier and angrier, but all of a sudden she sighed and put down the wrench where she had gotten it from. Edward let out a sigh of relief and now he just wanted to clobber Alfons. One: because he had laughed at Julia for being able to come up with something he couldn't come up with, and two: because he had nearly caused a wrench to be thrown at Ed's head.
Julia ignored Alfons' comment and they started looking through their blueprints again. Julia turned out to be quite the artist as she drew the design she liked for the rocket, and it turned out to be pretty efficient in Ed's mind, but the one that Alfons suggested was more efficient than hers. Julia's was a bit…well…
It's so frilly…
It seemed like only an hour to the two of them before Ed glanced at the clock and realized it was already 6 o'clock. Since it was winter, it was already dark outside and he decided to call it quits for the day.
"I'll walk you home since it's already so late. Do you think Hawk…or uh…Natalie was it? Would…Natalie get worried?" Ed asked as he stumbled and tried not to call her Hawkeye.
"Oh I don't think so. She's probably lost track of the time since her and James were going to plan for the wedding all day long. Actually, I need to go pick up my dress for the wedding tomorrow come to think of it." Julia said that last part to herself. "Let's go."
They put on their coats and headed out into the factory. The ones who were working on the rocket itself were still busy, but most of the people who were working in their offices that day had already left an hour ago. Ed and Julia waved good-bye to Alfons and left the factory.
"Thank you for letting me come to the factory today. I really enjoyed it." Julia said.
"No problem." Ed said, but winced after he said it. He hated winter on Earth, it just got so cold. If he had his automail from before it would have been an even more painful thing for him, but at least he had the rubber to hide the machinery in his arm so it kind of acted like insulation. But it still hurt in his shoulder where the metal met flesh. He started rubbing his right shoulder but it didn't help much.
"Is something wrong with your shoulder?" Julia asked after she noticed Ed's behavior.
"It's just the automail again. It doesn't like the cold."
"Auto…mail? What's that?" Julia asked, completely confused at Ed's choice of words. Edward realized what he had just let slip out and tried to cover it quickly.
"It's nothing, don't worry." Ed said. "Man I'm hungry. I can't wait to get home and eat something." He said, trying to change the conversation before Julia asked any more questions.
The entire day, it actually felt like it was…her…standing beside him. Not Julia. And just now, he had gotten them mixed up again and thought maybe she could help with his automail. But no, Julia wasn't an automail mechanic like her. She was different from her. And yet…they were also so similar.
Author's Note:
As promised, I have the second chapter up! I have now made up my mind and Fridays are going to be the update days for those of you who don't already know. If I don't post a chapter up on a Friday, then it's probably because I got little to no reviews. For a first chapter, 3 reviews is alright. But I've already had like...80 hits on this T.T Anyways, hope you guys liked this one. I know my chapters are a bit short but I'm kind of experimenting with chapter lengths for each of my fics. In the future I think I'm gonna post a poll to see what readers like the most lol.
Anyways, I try to keep as historically accurate as I can, but some things might be a bit jumbled up. I did a hell of a lot of research on both WWI and WWII and the period in between so I could write this. BE THANKFUL!! Lol. But uhh, Oberth had already come up with the idea of using liquid fuel by the time this story takes place, which is 1924, but something significant with the liquid fuel (forgot what actually happened lol) didn't happen until 1926, so I thought it would be kind of a cool idea to put it in there. Well, other than that I hope you guys all liked this!
Review please!