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"Hello, Momoko." Scully looked up and shook her head, smiling. "You might as well just get cocoa at that point. What's up first for today?"

"It could be white chocolate!" Momoko laughed as she pulled her books and notes from her bag. "But cocoa would get me marshmallows and no chance of any coffee flavour. I don't have anything pressing at the moment, so we can start anywhere. What about you?"

"Just finished the Russian. //Or it finished me,//" Scully concluded. "Math first, maybe? Then the science? Or did you want to study the history first?" She cocked her head. "Have you heard how you did on the exams yet?"

"I have no idea what you just said," Momoko smiled, "but it sounded totally foreign, so I am going to guess you said it right. I would love to do history first... which history are we working on again: mine, yours, or someone else's?"

Notice how she skipped over the question about her exams? She was sneaky like that.

"Yours. Mine is eleven years out of date anyway. They've probably redefined half the significance of the Vietnam War by now." She gave Momoko a I caught that look. She wouldn't push, but.... "Did you get the results yet?" Okay. A tiny push.

"That's fine, but mine's from a different world, so don't be surprised if it sounds wrong." Momoko shifted her books so History was at the top, pushing it towards Scully with a sigh. "I got them, but I haven't opened them yet."

Scully could sympathize with that. "You probably did better than you thought, you know." She opened the top book, and said carefully, "Okay. What century do you want to start in?"

"I'm just not sure how I feel about any of it. I don't know what I want the answers to be?" Momoko grimaced and leaned over to flip the pages. "I got through a lot of the Edo period, but I think I need to go back over it. I totally didn't get some of the questions at the Exams."

"Edo it is." Scully tilted her head as she flipped through the pages, and asked, "You're not sure you want to pass the tests you took?"

"Well, I don't want to fail?" She sank back into her seat. "But the National Exams mean university, and I have no idea what I want to study. And joining the Police Academy means I become a police woman."

Scully opened up the page to Edo, and then frowned. "Wait, so they don't ask you to get a college degree to go into the police academy? And you do know that most people figure out what they want to major in once they get to college."

"You can test in, too. There's levels you can get in at if you have a degree, I think," Momoko replied. "Or they take less time to graduate or something. If I go to University, I'll definitely have to take time to figure out what I want to do."

"What year is considered the beginning of the Edo period?" Scully asked, then propped her chin on her hand. "It sounds like you want to go to the police academy, college or not."

"Ieyasu won the battle of... Sekigahara! in 1600 but he didn't get made shogun until 1603," Momoko answered. "Police Academy seems to match more what I want to be? But I don't want to be a traffic officer or stuck in a precinct fetching coffee for the real detectives just because I'm a girl."

"Correct. And what?" Scully just stared at her, stunned into WTF? territory.

Momoko blinked back. "What what? Oh, the 'because I'm a girl' thing?" Momoko tended to forget other people weren't from her world. "I don't mean that's all they'll let me do! It's just that's sort of where a lot of female officers end up."

"I... see." Well. Possibly Momoko's Japan was less egalitarian than their own. She paused and asked, "How long did the Edo period last?... and if you want to be more than a traffic cop, then a college degree is probably a good idea." She raised her eyebrows. "Or do you not want to go to college at all, full stop?"

"Uhm... until the Meiji period started?" Momoko tried. "I want to be a Hero of Justice. But that's not a full-time job."

"That's right, and how many centuries is that?" Scully paused, totally non-plussed. Hero of Justice. "...well, no. As I understand it, that doesn't usually pay very well."

"Three centuries?" Momoko hedged. "I get paid for it now. By the Mayor's office. But I totally don't think it will be forever."

"Close to two and a half. 1603 to 1867," Scully told her, then conscientiously added, "At least in the view of the writers of this book. Why were the Meiji restored to power? ... Wait, you get paid to do the fighting you do here?" Scully frowned. "But you don't think they'll keep doing that in the future. Why not?"

"I get paid to be on-call for back home, not here." Momoko shook her head. "But the monsters don't attack all the time, so even if I'm getting paid I won't be fighting all the time. But I totally doubt they'd keep paying me for times when I wouldn't be working. To restore power to the Emperor and remove it from the shoguns."

Scully had a moment of cognitive dissonance of wondering if Momoko was going to restore the Emperor, and then blinked and said, "So, what do you want to do? That would earn a salary? ... I mean, police work sounds good. Just not the making coffee part. Why not go to college for that?" After a second, she said, "And see, you do know this. What were some of the pressures conspiring to make that attractive to people?"

Speaking of dissonance... "You have to go to college to make coffee in your world?!" That totally explained the problems she'd had with that part of Professor Gibbs' class!

Scully stared at her, hard. Trying to see if... "Are you messing with me?"

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