The initial rapid progress in my investigation of Natalie Fogg had slowed down somewhat, which caused me a bit of frustration.

My Temporal Instructor and her grad student  Mira both assured me that I had achieved quite a lot in a very short period of time already. A number of puzzles and perhaps even inconsistencies notwithstanding, the three of us were convinced now that my roommate had to be the same person as the historical Natty Fogg, author of the Red Notebook and, for all intents and purposes, one of the founders of the field of Temporal Physics. Except that I still harbored some lingering doubts that we might somehow be dealing with an alternate universe version of Natty Fogg here. I did not tell Sara or Mira about my doubts, though.

At this point, Sara advised me to be patient and to just keep my eyes and my ears open. Perhaps I would be able to figure out what was going to happen to Natty Fogg to make her fade into obscurity after deriving what later would be called the Fogg solutions during her time at St. Albert's.

So I focused on getting to know my classmates better and on talking to my roommate, hoping to obtain useful new information that way. As it turned out, that strategy yielded results much quicker than I had expected.

"Natty?" I looked up from the book I was reading as the door to our room opened. Natalie entered, wrapped in a large towel. "How was your shower?"

"Fine. The water actually turned out to be hot, for a change." She closed the door behind herself and smiled at me. "But hey, how come you are calling me Natty, suddenly?"

'Because I read in your notebook and found out that this is how you wrote your name on the inside of the cover', I thought. 'Also, now that I am one hundred percent sure that you are, or will be the author of the Red Notebook, I have come to think of you as Natty.'

Of course, I did not tell her any of that. "I don't know, really. I kind of like the sound of it. Do you mind?"

"Nah, I don't mind." In fact, she looked rather pleased. "It's just that nobody has called me that for a long time."

That caught my interest. "Really? When we first met, you said I could call you either Natalie or Nat or Natty, any one of those would be fine."

"Well, the kids at the orphanage used to call me Natty. A few of the personnel, too." She grinned. "Quite a few of them called me Nutty, though. Nutty Fogg."

I nodded gravely. "Makes sense to me."

Natty took off her towel and tossed it at me. I caught it and put it on my bed.

"You are so mean," she accused me, laughing.

She walked over to our shared closet and rummaged through the drawer she kept her socks and underwear in. I watched as she took out a pair of panties, held it up for inspection, frowned and put it back into the drawer. She selected a different pair and stepped into them.

I still had to get used to her casual attitude towards nudity. But then, I had never had a roommate before, back home in the 23rd century: all dorm rooms at the university and at the ITP were single rooms.

"Is Fogg the name given to you by your parents, then, or did they come up with it at the orphanage, somehow?"

Natty was putting on her bra as she turned to face me. I remembered what she had said in one of the entries in her diary: that she wished she had my boobs, or for that matter, my butt. I wondered whatever gave her that idea. Her breasts were smaller than mine but looking great, in my opinion. The same held true for her bum.

"They totally made it up."

"What?" For a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about. "I am sorry, I was thinking about something else."

"My last name. You asked if it was the name of my parents. They totally made it up, at the orphanage." She shrugged. "I suppose they had to come up with something, right?"

She sat down on the edge of her bed to put on a fresh pair of socks.

"There was that woman working at the orphanage, Thea. She loved Jules Verne. I mean, she loved all sorts of literature, but in particular the novels written by Jules Verne. 'Around the world in eighty days', do you know that one? The main protagonist's name is Phileas Fogg. Thea made me read that novel, and I loved it, too. It was Thea who picked my name after it was decided that I was going to remain at the orphanage." She smiled. "Thea was one of the few likeable people at that place. When she retired, I ran away. I guess she had been the only reason for me to stay there."

"Did you ever go back to that place? To the orphanage?"

Natty was buttoning her blouse.

"Nah, I was glad to be gone from that place. I wouldn't mind if I got the chance to see Thea again, though."

"Right."

I returned my attention to my book as she put on her skirt and her shoes.

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A / N :   As always, I greatly appreciate your taking the time to read this. Please feel free to add your comments or to sent me a PM, I am looking forward to get your feedback.