This is the next installment. I still haven't decided if I'm going to continue. I find it strange how the number of alerts is significantly higher than the number of reviews especially when I said I would be more likely to continue if I got a lot of feedback. (sarcasm)

Just a handy note: This is in Third Person Limited meaning we follow Elizabeth around and can only see/hear the thoughts in her head. Italics are her thoughts by the way.

Elizabeth woke up to the sound of her alarm at 5:35 AM. She shut it off quickly and rolled over with a sigh. After a few minutes of just laying there, she got up and dressed in some gray cut off sweats and an old white t-shirt. Elizabeth snuck out of the guest room and padded downstairs in her socks. She sat on a step and put on her shoes.

Shane entered and looked at her. "What are you doing?"

She glanced at him before turning back to tying her shoes. "I'm going for a run."

"You can't," Shane replied.

Elizabeth kept here eyes on her shoes. "I'm going. I need to stay conditioned while we're here."

Shane crossed his arms. "I'm not familiar with the area, so I don't want you to go."

"I'll be gone all of a half hour, okay?" she replied going to the door. "Besides, I don't want to be here when you wake them up." She closed the door with a quiet but firm click.

Elizabeth waltzed down the front steps slowly. She did a few quick stretches before taking off on a loop around the neighborhood. It was a small loop, so she ran it several times. Elizabeth had hoped that the run would help clear her head or at least let her run away from all her thoughts, but it didn't.

As she approached the house, Elizabeth heard the whistle. Does he take that everywhere? She knew Shane was fond of the whistle from the classes he taught during his breaks, but she hadn't heard it in a couple years. Shaking her head, Elizabeth stretched out her muscles again before entering the house.

Helga was in the kitchen with breakfast made. Lulu and Zoe were eating while Helga brought Tyler's food over to his high chair. Seth was just coming down the stairs as Elizabeth sat next to Peter who was simply staring at his food. She ate her own food and helped Peter get started on his own breakfast.

"You weren't kidding about needing my sleep, huh?" Seth muttered from next to her.

She smiled at him. "Not really."

Seth groaned softly. "Do you have to get up with him all the time?"

Elizabeth helped Peter set his glass back down. "Kind of. Shane isn't really around all the time, but I have to get up at six every weekday at the academy. The weekends we get to do what we want, and I sometimes go to the house that Shane has a few blocks from base. Most of the time I stay in the dorm and get up by seven to go for a run. It's easier than drastically changing my schedule. It's what I did today actually."

"Why do you run?" he asked with his mouth full.

She wrinkled her nose at the action. "I have to stay in shape for the physical parts of school. Plus it builds my endurance."

Seth nodded in understanding. "Oh."

"Yeah," she said helping Peter with his glass again. "Do you get a newspaper?"

Seth looked at her oddly. "Ummm...I think so."

Elizabeth smiled. "I'm going to go get it."

She took her time walking out on the porch and checking out the mailbox. Oh, man. Seth has the bluest eyes. Shut up! What am I thinking? She stifled the thoughts and read the headlines as she headed back inside. When she reentered the kitchen everyone was standing and listening to (and arguing with) Shane except Seth. Elizabeth couldn't see Seth anywhere in the room.

"Elizabeth, here's yours," Shane said holding out what Elizabeth recognized as a tracking device.

She scowled. "Umm, no. I still have the one you gave me for my fourteenth birthday."

Shane frowned at her. "I thought you told me you lost it."

Elizabeth sighed. "I lied. I just turned it off."

He looked at her in surprise. "How? It was underneath the glass."

"I used some jewelry tools from Aunt Jen. It wasn't that hard. I turned it back on yesterday before we left," she replied.

Everyone was looking at them when Shane returned to handing out the devices. "Where's the older male?"

"He walks like Dracula with footsteps silent like death," Helga whispered darkly.

There was a pause as everyone considered what she just said before Zoe clarified. "He's in his room."

Shane ran up the steps, and Elizabeth turned to talk to Helga. "How was your date last night?"

"It was good. I like him," Helga said, her accent thicker than the night before.

"Good. I'm glad someone had a good night," she replied as a noise immediately followed by yelling followed. Apparently Shane broke down a door. Zoe ran upstairs, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Shane came down a few minutes later. "You broke his door?!"

Shane nodded. "Yeah. He was in the bathroom though."

Elizabeth shook her head. "You didn't notice the bathroom door was closed? Better yet, what if he had been on his way to open the door when you kicked it in? You could have injured him. God! Think before you act!"

Shane looked surprised that this was the second time she had yelled at him in the past twelve hours. "What's gotten into you, soldier?"

"I'm not a soldier!" she yelled back. "God! You'd think after four years you'd understand me. I guess not." Elizabeth swept out of the room and went upstairs resisting the urge to stomp.

When she got upstairs, she peeked into Seth's room. Zoe was standing up to leave, and the two of them were whispering. Elizabeth rolled her eyes and left for her room to change. She put on some jeans and a Rolling Stones shirt that had been her dad's. She was in the middle of typing an e-mail to her friend Katelin when someone knocked on her door. "Come in."

Seth entered and looked around. "I thought you might want some company for a little bit. Zoe seems to have taken an instant disliking to you."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "She wouldn't happen to be a cheerleader, would she?"

Seth laughed. "Unfortunately, she is. Do military academies even have cheerleaders?"

This time Elizabeth laughed. "Nope. I just guessed on what I know from teen movies. Military academy is pretty dull. What's public school like? I haven't been since the middle of sixth grade."

Seth frowned. "It's not that great. Classes are forty-five minutes long, and you get twenty minutes to eat lunch."

She looked at him shyly. "If we have to stay after your mom gets back for extra security or whatever, would you be tweaked if I asked to shadow you at school for awhile?"

"Not really. It'd be nice to have a friend in some of my classes for once," he answered. "Did you seriously just use the word tweaked?"

Elizabeth laughed again. "Yeah. It's something I picked up from one of the disciplinary cases. She taught me a bunch of slang."

Seth smirked. "That's a little bit odd."

She shrugged in response. "Yeah, but Sonrisa is cool. She got let out early for good behavior."

He looked down. "Do you have a lot of friends there anymore?"

"Yeah. I mean, I have a couple of friends that left early that I keep in touch with and several friends there, but I don't really have very close friends there anymore. I got sick of having friends that were only there for a year, so I had to settle for people that aren't exactly what I'm looking for. It's better than right after both my parents died," she replied. Way to just throw it in there casual like, Lizzy.

He winced. "That sucks."

Elizabeth just shrugged again. "It's not too bad. You probably have it worse what with what's happened to you lately."

Seth ran a hand through his hair. "Does it ever get better?"

She sighed. "That depends. My situation is different than yours, Seth. You lost one parent, and it happened at a later age. You still have your mom, and you got to know your dad. Still, it kind of makes the differences suck harder, and there's more for you to miss of your dad. For me, everything was a big change, so I accepted it pretty early on."

He looked at her. "How did they die...if you don't mind me asking?"

Elizabeth looked away. "We were in a car accident. My dad was driving. It was windy, and the other driver had been drinking. He wasn't over the legal limit, but he wasn't working full capacity. We hit each other just about dead on. My dad was killed instantly, but my mom and I had to wait for over an hour to get out of the car. I was fine. I only had a few cuts and bruises, but by the time they got into the car, my mom had lost too much blood. She died right as they pulled her out.

"To answer your question from earlier better, I guess it depends on your definition of better. The pain eventually fades. You still miss them, but you learn to deal with it. Sometimes that fades away too."

Seth looked at her closely. "How are you?"

She knew he meant how she was about the accident, and her brows still furrowed in deep thought. "I still have nightmares about the experience, and I don't really like riding in cars especially when it's someone I don't know driving. I'm getting better though. You will too."

He nodded. "I think I'm going to go finish up the stupid geometry homework."

She hissed in sympathy. "I'd offer to help, but geometry isn't my thing. I've found that the more practical the math subject, the more I suck at it. If it's some highly specialized thing that isn't widely used in life or very abstract, I'm great at it. Helpful, huh?"

Seth laughed. "Oh, yeah." He left without closing the door behind him. Elizabeth sprawled across her bed on her stomach and resumed her e-mail to Katelin. She resisted acknowledging the butterflies in her stomach.

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