Elizabeth was lying on her left side, facing the wall. Her left arm was tucked under her head, with the edge of the pillow sandwiched between both. Her blanket was haphazardly strewn over her naked body, giving her a modicum of decency, which was of questionable worth considering what she had been doing for the last unknown number of minutes.

Liz would not call herself promiscuous, she most certainly would not get into bed with anybody, but she was twenty three now, a free woman. Hell, she was a SeeD before Squall even had his stint which made him the Commander then Captain of the Gardens. She was never going to marry; she felt that any marriage partner she had would be endangered by her job, and she thought that she would never even get to this age.

A hand softly caressed over her bare shoulders, causing her to involuntarily shrug her shoulders and inhale sharply. She found it ironic that, even after having sex with someone, she did not like anybody touching her skin.

Irvine's hand caressed her shoulder and upper arm and she shifted uncomfortably until he stopped. Irvine had asked her about that before, and by now he knew the answer. Elizabeth Andros was a stone cold warrior, never opening up, never letting anybody inside her – figuratively speaking. Everything she did was for herself, and for no one else.

"What are ya thinkin'?"

Liz sighed and rolled over. Her coppery hair, which had been splayed out behind her on the pillow, slowly tucked under her cheek as she pulled the blanket to cover her mid chest. Not that it helped. Irvine was tracing his finger over her pale skin, and she could not understand what he saw in her skin that was so 'beautiful' as he put it.

She studied the cowboy's face for several seconds before answering. I want to sleep, to rest. I don't want to fight anymore, I just want to give up and go far away. I'm tired of watching friends die. Part of her wished she had recited just that, but she did not. She would never show that kind of weakness to her boss, and her friend. "I'm just tired."

Irvine nodded and shifted, climbing out of her bed. She watched him get up and smirked just a bit. Oh yea…One could not say that Irvine did not have a cute butt, and that was one of the things she liked the most about having sex with him. His body was very well built, courtesy of all the military training. Not that hers was not, but then again, Liz rarely checked out female bodies, even her own.

Irvine reached for his pants and Liz frowned. "Where are you going?"

He did not stop or turn around until his pants were on and zipped. After that though, he did turn and gave her a view of his chest, while he caught a glimpse of her smirk. "I gotta meet Selphie and Quisty for SeeD mission assignments and Trabia Garden transfers. I hate Squall's old job."

This produced a chuckle from Liz's lips. Squall was no longer in charge of combat assignments in Balamb Garden. In fact, until Trabia Garden was fully up and running, the Captain's job was a lot more low level than Irvine's."

Elizabeth watched the cowboy dress in silence. He turned to leave, knowing that she preferred it like that, but she surprised him. "What about Selphie?"

Irvine stopped cold thinking before putting on his cowboy hat. "I do love her."

Liz sat up, but kept the blanket around her body. Her small hand kept the blanket covering her body as she stared at him. Her coppery tresses fell like a wavy curtain all around her face, giving her a wild and animalistic look… which was exactly how she liked to be seen 'in private'. "Then why do you come here?"

Irvine watched her, and she felt his eyes wandering down and removing the blanket in his mind. Liz waved her free hand in between them. "Irvine… eyes here"

She pointed her index and middle fingers at her own eyes and Irvine's eyes snapped back up. He didn't seem at all embarrassed, and the grin on his face hinted the exact opposite. "Well…" the grin slowly faded. "Selphie doesn' wanna get married 'ntil she settles down as Trabia's Commander. And unlike you, she's decided to not perform..." he paused and looked up at the ceiling trying to recall the exact words. "'extra curricular activities'."

Irvine rolled his eyes and sighed. "If I wait for her THAT long, well… ignoring my reputation…" Irvine did a dramatic pose which he tried to appear manly, but mostly it seemed stupid to Liz. "… I'd have a real problem when I get urges she will not satisfy."

Liz rolled her eyes. This is the exact attitude about men which made her determined never to love or marry. Men just used women to get their thrills and then they cast her sex off. The only reason why she let any men have her at all was that she wanted her own thrills. It was her little method of revenge: use a MAN then cast him off.

Liz sighed and waved her hand. "Okay get going."

She knew he would not though. He walked over to her and took the hand which she waved and kissed it softly. "Have a good afternoon, Miss Andros."

Liz let him kiss the top of her hand and hold it for about three seconds before ripping it from his grasp. He looked wounded by her shunning and she shook her head. "Don't look wounded there cowboy, you got your thrills. Its not like you're some gallant knight and all."

Irvine laughed and turned walking out of the door and looking both ways. The hallway was clear. "Well then ya have a good rest, LIZ, and I'll see ya after your mission report is done."

With that he shut the door leaving her alone. Liz stayed staring at the door for a moment before slowly sliding down the wall and letting her head hit the pillow again. Now was the time for sleep, if she could summon it. Her body was tired, and the blanket against her naked skin felt invitingly good and warm. She closed her eyes and sighed softly.

Jasmine's face appeared in front of her closed eyelids and they snapped open again. With a muttered curse she rolled onto her back, and pulled the blanket to her chin to keep her warmer. She stared at the ceiling for hours thinking about the mission, and the question of whether or not she COULD have done something else for her dead partner.

When no answer was forthcoming she slowly climbed out of bed and slipped into a set of undergarments. Her hands reached behind her body to clasp the bra closed as she looked at herself in the mirror hanging on the inside of her closet door. She had no doubt she was good looking, but she didn't think she was OVERLY good looking. Her skin was too pale for her tastes. No matter how she tried to, her body would just not tan. She could BURN very nicely. An hour in the sun made her seem like she had just been torched by Ifrit. Her coppery hair was dark and contrasted her pale skin very nicely, but the waviness of her hair seemed unattractive. He knew most women had straight hair, and it always seemed like those women had all the men they wanted.

With a sigh she looked into her own eyes. They weren't a soft blue like Quistis' or emerald green like Selphie's. They were a dark brown, almost black, and did not call for any attention whatsoever. However her eyebrows DID curve seductively, and her eyes, almost black as coals, seemed like a constant enigma, which suited her personality just fine.

Her eyes darted over her figure and she knew while she did not have the cleavage to be called a 'goddess', she was doing pretty well with her lithe body. In fact, her toned muscles gave her a good contrast.

Jasmine's face appeared in the mirror, glaring at her and she shut the closet with a bang. Her fist pounded against the door hard, and her knuckles exploded in pain. Liz just ignored it for several seconds, then cast a low level cure spell on her hand.

Troubled Master?

Liz recognized the 'voice' of Pandemonium instantly and sighed. Not that it's your concern, but yes I am.

Pandemonium's deep base voice chuckled then resounded strong in her mind. You are hard on yourself. What could you have done differently?

That gave Liz a moment of pause. I don't know.

Can your brooding over this produce anything productive then?

Liz did not deign Pandemonium with an answer and instead slipped back into her tank top and hip hugging jeans. She stormed out of her room with a cloud over her head. Anybody who saw her immediately gave her a wide berth or turned around and found another path completely.

Liz stormed through the main hallway and past the fish fountains. She briefly considered going into the Training Center to relieve stress, but she had left her weapon in her room, and she wanted to hit something anyway. She walked to the elevator and punched the call button, then started pacing impatiently like a caged tiger.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the left elevator dinged and slid open, and a young cadet slowly started walking out, his eyes absorbed in his noteputer. Liz just grabbed him and shoved him out of the way, sending him sprawling. She hit the "Gym Deck" button and just stared through the closing glass doors at the young cadet. She smirked as the elevator descended and before she knew it, she was alone.

The elevator stopped one floor down, and spit her out in a very large gym with several training rooms. Liz knew that this room was where the 'garden master' Norg used to reside, but with all the free space, why put it to waste? Squall had requested a full fledged Gym for working out, and Cid had very quickly decided on this entire floor for the facility.

Elizabeth stormed into one of the training rooms and shut the door. Inside were mats, and a pair of free standing punching bags, their bases weighted to keep them from tilting over easily. Liz looked at them for just a moment before charging in, using a flurry of punches and kicks to assault them. She struck both again and again picturing random Galbadian solders, and made sure each bag got its fair share of bone crushing blows.

The door opened and she stopped, wiping her brow and turning to the person intruding her solitude. To her surprise, it was Zell. He walked in and watched her as he circled around her, watching her with a critical eye. "I heard Jasmine died."

Elizabeth frowned and turned back towards the punching bag. She wished idly that it would turn into a Galbadian soldier or – better yet – President Caraway himself. She assaulted it with enough force to nearly knock it right over. Zell kept on judging her, and Liz was not sure if he was watching her fighting techniques as Garden's hand to hand combat teacher or evaluating her mental fitness. "How did it happen?"

Liz stopped for a moment and wiped her brow of the sweat that was trickling down it. She sighed then went back to assaulting the punching bag. She assaulted it with enough force to nearly knock it right over. Zell kept on judging her, and Liz was not sure if he was watching her fighting techniques as Garden's hand to hand combat teacher or evaluating her mental fitness. "How did it happen?"

Liz stopped for a moment and wiped her brow of the sweat that was trickling down it. She sighed then went back to assaulting the punching bag. The bag sagged and bounced under the withering rain of fists deforming it, only to pop back up and take even more. "They killed her. She was holding off three soldiers while I went in and downloaded the schematics. She did well too, I got the entire thing, and when I came back, there was one left. She was having fun too… then her blade broke. Before I could shoot him, the solder ran her through with his sword. Jasmine…"

Liz choked on her next words and stopped punching the bag, instead resting her arm on it and giving a soft sob. She squeezed her eyes shut and a tear squirted out of the corner of her eye and trailed down her pale cheek. Over and over again, she heard Jasmine's scream in her mind, the gurgling choked cry of pain which was the last sound she made as the Galbadian's sword not only ran her right through, but twisted in her gut and destroyed her body. "Three seconds… if I had been three seconds faster, she would still be alive."

Zell regarded her for a moment. "Would she?"

This certainly got Liz's attention. She looked up at the martial artist with eyes flaring in a dangerous anger. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Zell circled around her, pacing slowly as her fiery eyes watched her like a wounded animal watching its hunter. "Jasmine's sword was cracking. Irvine pointed it out to me, and we both told her several times to replace her sword. Even Quistis told her to get a new sword for the mission, but she refused, saying it was a family heirloom, and that her child would also use it. If you had shot the soldier, it would not have mattered. It would have snapped with the next Galbadian soldier or the next after that. No matter what, you could not take the shot every single time. She made a choice to use a damaged weapon, and it killed her."

Elizabeth glared hard at her. Suddenly she was stalking him, circling around like a female tiger circled her prey. "It doesn't matter. I should have taken the shot. I should have been faster. I… "She paused for greater emphasis. "… could have saved her and brought her home, even if her sword DID crack. I should have died, not her."

Zell was fast running out of room, as Liz was backing him into a corner. "If you had died, the mission would not have been accomplished. You would have died, her sword would have snapped, then she would have died, and then your body would be with hers too."

Liz' mind flashed to an image of Jasmine's splayed open body; again with a crook Galbadian doctor performing a dissection of her body, and the image of more than one solder violating her dead but still beautiful body. It sickened her. "Have you NO respect for the dead? Are you brass so concerned with the mission that you don't realize someone is DEAD and not coming back!" she was shouting by now.

Zell's voice was still calm. "No, we know that, and we mourn her loss. She was our friend too remember. I dated her for a year remember? She was a Trabia survivor, so Selphie knew her for years, and through her, Irvine knew her. Quistis taught her, and Squall trained her sword fighting skills. How do you think HE feels? If he had trained her a bit better, she might be alive don't you think? But that isn't true, but she made a choice, and she lived with… and died by the consequences of her choice."

Liz could not take it anymore. She screamed a feral animalistic scream and charged the martial artist, fist flying.

She never had a chance.

Within 5 seconds, her face connected rather solidly with the matted floor of the exercise room, and her am was twisted in a painful but not damaging way. "You forget the first lesson of combat Liz: Don't attack in anger." Zell's voice was more tired and pained, which surprised her. "Please don't make that mistake in combat, and leave us with the guilt of not training you right."

With that Zell let go of her arm and walked out, leaving her alone to nurse her twisted arm, her bruised chin, and her highly bruised ego.