Omake Chapter: A day in the life of Lita.

0620hrs, 9 October 2013, "Top Secret" Medical Facility, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan

"Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. "Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness." John Wesley

"The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind." Gilbert K. Chesterton.

Beep beep beep beep beep.

Lita had to suppress the urge to slap her hand down on the alarm clock, otherwise she might break it. Again. For the fifth time this month. And that was without her prosthetic arm.

She finally managed to hit the snooze button with her remaining arm and roll out of bed…and onto the floor.

"Ow!"

What a great start to the day. After picking herself off of the floor, Lita dusted her nightgown off and stood up, grunting as she did so.

"Ugh…" She rubbed the stump of her left arm with her right hand, massaging the phantom pain that came every now and then. It was just another reminder of the extremely crappy situation she found herself in every day. If it wasn't killing people who may or may not be innocent, it was being poked and prodded with a variety of needles and immersion in healing fluid, which was supposed to be part of their ongoing treatment.

As per the instructions of Dr. Kobayashi, she took out two bottles of pills from her desk, and took one from each. The staff had been nice enough to put a mini-fridge while they were away on missions, and now it was full of soda, bottled water, and some sake and vodka. Not that Lita liked to drink anyway, but she appreciated the gesture. She took out a bottle of water and opened it up, popping the pills into her mouth and washing it down with the water.

Lita put the bottle of water away and closed the refrigerator door, and walked over to a set of dresser drawers by the desk. Opening the top one, she took off her nightgown and changed out her underwear, and then slipping into some workout clothes. She had gotten used to putting on clothing with just one good arm, and while it took some effort, she had picked it up quite quickly.

"What time is it…?" Lita squinted at her alarm clock, which also doubled as a radio. It read, "0630."

It was about time to begin.

"Good morning, everyone," the announcer over the radio said. "Let's begin."

"One…two…three! One…two…three!"

The soothing piano music and the announcer's voice carried Lita into a magical place, away from the suffering and misery that seemed to follow her no matter what she did. It didn't matter how many people she killed in the name of national security or in the defense of freedom, at the end of the day, she was just a hired gun, perhaps, doing the dirty work that no one else wanted to do.

Lita bent her knees down and swung her one good arm (plus her left stump) together, following the announcer's instruction on the radio.

"Now do windmills, please."

She switched out, bringing her arm over her head and swinging it down, then doing the process in reverse. It worked a lot better if she had two arms, but she didn't want to put that prosthetic arm on just yet.

The rest of the radio exercises went without a hitch. Lots of stretching and movement of the upper body, bending back, then forward, bringing the left arm over and stretching to the right and vice versa…basically, your standard exercises.

"That will conclude our exercises for today. And now for the news."

There was a slight pause as the newsdesk got ready, then their host started talking.

"Good Morning. Prime Minister Kenji Hasegawa today announced that there will be a major increase in JSDF funding, from .9 percent of the GDP to 1.0 percent. This move has been met with skepticism on both sides; Hasegawa's Party, the DJP is unhappy that the increase is occurring in the first place due to promises in the previous election stating that the budget…"

"And that's enough of that," Lita groused. She switched off the radio.

That was a good enough warmup. Lita grabbed her iPod from the desk, switched off the lights to her room and opened the door out into the hallway; she momentarily thought about putting the prosthetic arm on, but that would be for later in the day. No need to wear it when she didn't need to. It felt like a good time for a run, so better get on it before the doctors started to prod her again with their infernal equipment.

Lita strolled down the hallway to the exercise room (they weren't allowed outside the facility, so treadmills and such were brought in and set up in a room on the third floor (there were five in total), facing towards the mountains behind the facility. It was a glorious view, with the sun coming up from the East and illuminating the trees and fauna on the mountains…it would be even more glorious if it wasn't from a facility that conducted secret military operations.

"Morning Lita," an alert Amy said to her, shaking Lita out of her thoughts. "How are you doing today?" Amy and Lita seemed to be the early risers in the group, with Serena and Raye being the most heavy out of all of them. It varied either way with Mina, but today she was sleeping in.

"I'm doing okay," Lita replied. "Been having some trouble sleeping as of late. I think everything is just catching up to me."

Amy smiled at her, trying to make her feel better. "It's been hard on me too. I don't know how I'm keeping it together, but I'm doing it…somehow."

"I wish I could be as strong as you then," Lita said, looking at the ground.

"You're plenty strong," Amy reassured. Lita looked back up at her, and saw the nice smile on her face. That certainly cheered her up.

They looked at each for a second, but there was stuff to be done on Amy's part; something about reprogramming the HUDs and making sure that the beta testing (aka, the use by the SAILOR team) was satisfactory.

"I'll see you at breakfast, okay?" Amy said, walking down the hall and toward the basement. "Have a good workout."

"Yeah, I'll see you there too," Lita softly said. She waited until Amy was out of sight, then sighed heavily.

"Damn."

With Amy out of the way, she continued down the hallway and up the stairs to the workout room.

The five kilometer run wasn't much of a challenge to Lita, but it gave her time to think, something that she hadn't had much time to do in the last month or so. Why were they here? What were they doing this for? Would it ever end? Were the doctors and medical personnel genuinely caring, or was it all a façade?

She rubbed her head. Lita had headaches from time to time now, and Dr. Iwasaki and Kobayashi both assured her that it had nothing to do with the microchips in her brain, but she didn't think that was true at all…was it?

The treadmill beeped as she passed the five kilometer mark, and the machine started to slow down. Lita slowed her pace to match, still lost in thoughts.

She missed school. At the time, she would had done anything to get out of it, to free herself from the confines of government sponsored education and head out into the real world, where anything was possible. And here she was, in the confines of government sponsored military operations, and with even less freedom now.

Lita could see that the sun was coming up, and while it was not facing her directly, it was coming up over the facility in the east, its beautiful rays shining over the fall atmosphere in Japan.

What time was it anyway? Lita checked the time on her iPod; it was one of those fancy Nano ones with a touch screen and everything. 0800hrs.

Well, time to get breakfast. She hopped off of the treadmill and made her way downstairs.

The dining hall was in the center of the medical facility, with a big room filled with bland looking tables and chairs, designed more to make the bottoms of the occupants uncomfortable than for comfort, but that's what you got for having the government run things. A nice tea garden nearby helped to alleviate whatever tensions people might be having at the moment, and for the most part, the kitchen did its best to serve tasty food throughout the day.

"Morning Lita," one of the line cooks yelled out as she entered the cafeteria. "How are you doing today?"

Lita immediately regretted not knowing his name; for all their time here, she had not gotten to know the security staff, the orderlies, most of the nurses, doctors and other personnel working at the medical facility. It took a great deal of people to run the place, and there was always some activity going on, even if it didn't apply to the SAILOR team.

"I'm doing good, thanks," she said back, awkwardly. There was a buffet set up at the far end of the cafeteria, closest to the kitchen for obvious reasons, and Lita walked over there to get some food.

"What do you have today?" she asked the line cook, examining the platters of delicious smelling food.

"Well, we've got the standard Japanese fare over here," he said, pointing to a bunch of miso soup, white rice, grilled salmon, umeboshi and tamagoyaki. "And then we have the Western style breakfast over here." Some sausage, fried potatoes, hotcakes, biscuits and gravy. Nothing too special, but it was still a tasty Western…well, American style breakfast.

"Glad to see someone remembers my recipe," she commented, looking at the baked golden and fluffy biscuits. "I'll go with the Western style breakfast today." The cook smiled; it really didn't matter which meal she took, so long as the customer was happy. Lita took a plate from a rack next to some trays, and handed it to the cook who dumped large portions of the potatoes, sausage and biscuits.

"I'm not quite sure why would someone would eat biscuits and gravy," the line cook said, pouring the gravy over her biscuits. "But it's surprisingly good."

"It's an American thing," Lita said, taking the plate from the cook. It was obviously more heavy than before, and balancing it with one hand was a challenge. But she could handle it.

"They eat hamburgers all the time and are quite heavy."

"You're going to be quite heavy if you keep eating like this!" he joked. Joking about a woman's weight was something a man did at his own peril, but Lita took the joke in stride.

"I need the fat for what I do," Lita shot back. "Anyway, thanks."

"You're welcome. Come back for seconds!"

Lita walked away from the buffet area and picked out a seat in the center of the room. Sitting down, she suddenly remembered that she forgot her fork, and that it would probably be best if she got it. She was about to get up when she heard a voice behind her.

"Hey Lita."

It was Amy again.

"Hi Amy. Finished your programming…whatever?"

"Yes. We're still in beta, but everything seems to be okay for now. The translator is still a piece of junk, and the hostile targeting/acquisition system seems to be a little bit wonky at times. There might be a security problem with that, but I'll try to get that fixed in the next couple of days."

"Well, I'm sure that you'll find the answer."

"Yeah, me too." Amy's stomach growled, much to her embarrassment. "What's for breakfast?" she asked, placing her hand over her stomach.

"They've got both traditional Japanese and Western style breakfast there," Lita said, pointing to the buffet line.

"I'm not in the mood for sausages and biscuits," Amy said, looking at Lita's plate. "I think I'll stick to the Japanese food."

"Whatever. Can you get me a fork while you're at it?"

Amy nodded at that. She went over to the buffet and handed the line cook her plate, grabbing some chopsticks and a fork in the process. From it looked like the cook was talking to Amy; Lita couldn't really hear what they were saying, but it seemed to mirror the conversation they had earlier. Amy politely bowed to the cook and took her tray with food back to Lita's table.

"Say…do you know what the cook's name is?" Lita asked as she sat down. "I can never remember."

"Hold on…" Amy took out a HUD disguised as reading glasses and put them on. She turned and faced the line cook, who was now dishing out some food to some nurses.

"From the looks of it, his name is Kazuhiro Saitou. Born in 1985. Dropped out of Hokuriku University due to family and monetary problems. Worked for several different food service jobs before attending vocational school and…"

"Amy, that's enough." Lita felt really uncomfortable at how that much information could be available to them in an instant. Sure, using it on a mission? That was one thing, but using it to not only find someone's name, but their entire personal history was extremely disconcerting.

"Hmph." Amy took off the glasses and set them on the table.

"Itadakimasu!" she chanted and clapped her hands together.

Lita did her best to imitate her, but it was kinda hard to clap your hands together when you only had one arm.

"Oh. Um…" Amy blushed at the faux pas.

"It's okay," Lita quickly said, moving to clear up the miscommunication.

Amy tried to find some words to correct the situation. "I'm sorry, it's just…"

"Eat your meal," Lita ordered, playfully. "It's alright."

"Thanks. I'll be more careful."

The two of them dug in, eating heartily and not saying much. One could easily mistake the scene in a nice private school somewhere in Japan, or England, or even the US, with two friends just having breakfast as the day began. Amy slowly picked up some grilled salmon and put it in her mouth, savoring each fleshy bite, while Lita simply blitzed through her biscuits and gravy thinking that if she ate them everyday, she would get so fat.

"What do you have planned for the rest of the day?" Lita asked, finishing up the last of her meal.

Amy shrugged. "I'm done with the HUDs, so I think I might catch up on some reading or perhaps get around to that Winston Churchill biopic that I wanted to watch."

"Heh. That sounds real interesting."

Amy smirked at Lita's unenthused response.

"Just because I'm better educated and smarter than the rest of you, doesn't mean you can make fun of me and my choices in movies."

"Oh yes I can," Lita retorted. "Like Transformers?"

"I enjoy it ironically," Amy said with a straight face.

"Uh-huh. You're also not a hipster, or whatever the Americans call them, so admit it; you like Transformers, and not the good stuff either."

"Alright, fine," Amy sighed, giving up. "I like some of that stuff. Helps me to unwind."

"See? That wasn't that hard now?" Lita stretched her arm out, thinking about what she herself would do.

"What time is it?"

"It's about 0900hrs."

"Oh, I think I'll go back and clean my room."

"Again?"

"There's always cleaning to be done," Lita said, getting up and taking her dirty plate with her. There was a rotating conveyor belt on the far left side of the cafeteria that would take the plates back to the kitchen, where they would be washed and dried, ready for their next use. In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, the staff had put out signs saying for people to use plates when possible and to not use trays as much, as it took much more water to wash those things. Results had been mixed.

"So, you're going to stay here?"

"I might get seconds."

"You're starting to sound like Serena."

"Don't let her hear you say that," Amy giggled. Lita waved to her and left the cafeteria, heading back to her room.

Back in her room, Lita saw a mess. Well, in any normal, sane person's eyes, it was spick and span, but not for Lita. The sheets were slightly off, the drawers sticking out a little bit too far from when she opened this morning, some of the stuff on the desk was out of order…it was time to go to work.

First, the bed. Instead of simply making the bed, she completely stripped it of the blanket, sheets and all. The sheets and accessories were nothing special; bland, white colors were the order of the day here. Making the bed required two hands (at least, from Lita's experience), so with great reluctance, she put her prosthetic arm on making sure it had a snug fit. She put the fitted sheet back on, making sure that the elastic stretched out perfectly to match the standard double bed. Next, she put the top sheet on, making sure that it was evenly draped on both sides. Otherwise, it would come out kinda funny if when she would go to sleep, so it had to be perfect. Lita was using the "hospital corner" method, where the end of sheet at the foot of the bed would be tucked in between the mattress and the frame. Next, the portion of the sheet that was sticking out from the side of the bed would be folded up on top, making a triangle (and hence the term, "hospital corner"). The remaining sheet hanging loose would be then tucked under, and the corner on top of the bed draped down, making a perfect and uniform fold in the sheet. Lita had it down to a science; she had both corners made in less than thirty seconds. Before putting the blanket on, she took out a 100 yen coin from her desk and walked over to the bed. It was pedantic, and even downright petty at times (if you were in the military), but it was the standard test to see if your sheets were tight enough. With not too much force, which was saying something for Lita, she tossed the coin straight down at the sheets.

It bounced back up, and she caught it.

"Very good then," she said with a smile. The blanket went on last, with the same hospital corner method being applied here.

The pillows were next, and Lita stripped the two mid-size pillows that adorned her Spartan bed of their covers, replacing them with fresh ones, and putting the dirty covers along with the sheets, into a laundry basket, which would be collected in a day or so. She fluffed the pillows along the baseboard of the bed, and admired her work for a second.

"Hmm." She would like to get more colorful sheets and all, but having standardized equipment was government policy, sheets and beds included.

Next up, the desk. Her two pill bottles were still out, and they were quickly put away in their respective place. Some water rings had formed from letting a water bottle sit out too long, and it had stained the plastic cover on the wooden desk.

The rest of the cleaning went quickly. Dust and grime stood no chance in Lita's room, and every bit of tile, wood and glass was polished to a bright sheen. After finally polishing the glass on the window that overlooked the mountains behind the medical facility (albeit through wrought iron-bars), she took a step back and admired her work. After a shower and a change of clothes, she felt much better.

Lita checked the time on the radio on her desk; it was only 1100. There was still plenty to do during the day.

She decided to brush up on her shooting, although it was more to blow off some steam rather than to practice.

There were two shooting ranges; one was outside, which was for the higher powered weaponry and explosives, along with the killhouse, and an indoor one in the basement of the medical facility, although located a good distance away from the research laboratories and the healing solution. It was somewhat of a long walk to the shooting range, but it was well worth it.

On the ground floor, there was a hubbub of activity by the entrance. Lita wondered what the hell was going on, so she went over to the gaggle of people who were standing there.

"What's going on?" she asked the receptionist, who was sitting at her desk.

The receptionist, a woman in her mid-thirties with dark brown hair and eyes to match, was busy making a phone call, but after a second, put her hand over the receiver and spoke to Lita. "I think one of the nurses fainted. It must be the stress or something."

Lita looked back at the entrance and tried to get a glimpse at the downed person.

"Hey, you okay?" she heard someone say.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Kawasaki, really. Just a bit tired."

It was Nurse Kuroi, and Dr. Kawasaki.

"Alright people, back to work." The gaggle of people left, leaving Dr. Kawasaki to help Nurse Kuroi up.

"Oh, hello Lita," Dr. Kawasaki said, walking up to her at the reception desk with Kuroi in tow.

"What are you doing here?" Kuroi asked suspiciously. Having one of the high-powered supersoldiers near the entrance wasn't against the rules, but escape attempts were always on the minds of the staff here. Not that the SAILOR team would try it anyway; they had nothing to go back to.

"I was going down to the shooting range," Lita replied. "Are you okay?"

"I just got dizzy and fell down," Kuroi said, embarrassed. "I've been working so hard trying to get you guys up to spec and making sure that all the equipment is working correctly…"

"Well, I can try to take care of some of the work," Lita offered, but Kawasaki jumped into the conversation.
"Sorry, Lita, but that's against the rest policy that we set up. Absolutely no working on the equipment other than firearms and paperwork. And that's limited to only four hours a day."

"You might want to talk to Amy about that," Lita suggested.

"Has she been working on the HUDs again? Dammit. I'll have a word with her right now." Kawasaki stalked off to go yell at Amy, who would probably smile and ignore him.

"Well, I hope you feel better," Lita said to Kuroi, who was walking Kawasaki run off.

"Thanks. Hope your time at the shooting range is fun and all. Oh, I think Raye is scheduled for an appointment with the psychologist at 1100hrs tomorrow. Make sure to tell her that."

"She still hasn't done that?" Lita asked. "Everyone went to therapy yesterday. Especially after what happened when we got back…"

"Maybe you can convince her to stop avoiding her. She's pretty good."

"Fine."

Kuroi looked at her watch. "Sorry, I have to get back to work." She bowed politely and scurried off to wherever she did her work at, leaving Lita to continue walking to the shooting range.

The sounds of a pistol being fired greeted Lita as she walked into the shooting range. From what it sounded like, it was a Browning Hi-Power. Not exactly hi-tech, but then again, neither was the Colt M1911, which had been around in some way, shape or form for the last 100 years or so. As she walked down the stairs leading to the range proper, she could hear Raye…singing?

"All I wanna do is BANG BANG BANG! And *chink* *ching*! And take your money!" Raye had no idea what the rapper was saying, but whatever it was, it was a very catchy tune. She had some "earpods" in, or whatever Apple wanted to call their headphones nowadays, and was happily shooting away at the paper target some 20 meters away.

"Raye, I can hear you," Lita groused, tapping her on the shoulder.

"Oh…sorry Lita. Didn't hear you there." She took off the ear protection and put the Browning on the table.

"No kidding. Mind if I join you?"

Raye shook her head. "Nah. Just ask Akamatsu over there for the weapons. We're missing the heavier stuff, as they moved most of it to the JSDF bases, but they still have some submachine guns and such."

"Thanks."

Raye put the ear protection back on and continued to shoot at the paper targets in downrange.

Lita walked over to the counter where Akamatsu had the weapons at, but wasn't paying attention at all.

"Akamatsu."

He didn't reply at first, because he had earphones in and was reading another doujinshi. Lita could barely make out the title; it said "Tea of Sagittarius."

"Hey!" Lita pounded her left hand on the counter…and caused a huge crack running the entire width of the counter. Akamatsu practically leapt out of the chair and nearly fell over, surprised by the loud bang.

"Goddammit," Akamatsu complained, righting the chair that had actually fallen over, "Lita, there's a bell on the side if you want to get my attention!"

Lita looked to the right of the booth and sure enough, there was a red button that said "Press for attendant."

"I'm going to have to get maintenance down here. Again."

"Sorry."

Akamatsu grunted his acceptance of the apology. "Well, now that you've interrupted me, what do you want?"

"You got any submachine guns?"

"Yeah."

There was an awkward moment where the two of them stood there, glaring at each other.

"Uh…which one?"

"I don't know, give me something."

"Fine." Akamatsu went to the back and grabbed an Uzi, three full magazines, ear protection, and some paper targets.

"Here. This should take care of you for awhile." He passed them over the counter and to her, glaring at the crack all the while.

"Thanks. I'll bring it back in one piece."

"You'd better." Akamatsu went back to reading his doujinshi while Lita walked over to an open stall.

Again, the Uzi wasn't the best in terms of technology; no caseless ammunition, no super self-aware bullets that would change direction or something like that, but it got the job done. Period.

She attached the target to the target hanger, and hit the button on the side of the stall to send it out to a distance of twenty five meters.

Okay, she thought. Let's do this.

Boom, headshot. A couple of rounds of semi-automatic fire ripped through the paper head of the target. A perfect shot at this range.

Next up, center of mass. Although body armor had made this sort of weapon she was carrying less effective, shooting for center of mass was an accurate and at least quick method of putting someone down. Headshots were only for expert shooters who could afford to hone their skills so much so they would snap headshots on targets and move on.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

A perfect spread of bullets, no larger than a couple of centimeters wide, was embedded in the target's chest.

Time for a new target. She hit the switch to return the target to her, and took it off the hanger, replacing it with a fresh one. This time, she sent the target out to forty meters, for a bit of a challenge.

Ejecting the magazine, she inserted a new one and chambered the round. Looking downrange at the target, she decided to have some fun for a change.

Lita flipped the selector to full auto, and depressed the trigger. It was so fun, seeing that paper target flinch and shake with the impact of thirty or so bullets being expelled at high velocity out of her death-maker.

Akamatsu wasn't impressed however. He was furious, actually.

"Lita, no automatic fire on the shooting range!" he screamed from his desk. "Doesn't ANYONE follow gun safety in here?!"
"Sorry," Lita replied, looking embarrassed. She knew better than that…

"Sorry or not, give me the weapon. In fact, Raye, give me your weapon to and get the hell out of here."

Raye glared at him, wondering if there could be some sort of "accident" that would dispose of the range master, but that would be just more hassle.

They both cleared their weapons, ejected any chambered rounds and the magazines, safetying them and checking again to see if any of the weapons still had bullets left in them.

"Just leave them there," Akamatsu ordered.

"But you just said…" Raye began, but was cut off by Akamatsu.

"I know what I just said, but knowing my luck, one of you will trip and fire off a shot in my general direction."

Lita rolled her eyes, but left the Uzi at the shooting stall. The two of them then walked out of the shooting range, leaving Akamatsu to simmer for a couple of hours.

"Sorry about that," Lita apologized. They were walking up the stairs and onto the ground floor.

Raye shrugged. "No worries. I was getting bored anyway. Want to get lunch?"

"Um…" Lita was still full from breakfast, but she could use the company. She checked her watch on her left "wrist"; it was better to just leave it there than to constantly put in on and off on her other "real" wrist. 1200hrs.

"Sure. Sounds good to me. I'm not particular hungry, but what the hell."

"Now you're talking. Serena's probably there, stuffing her face as usual."

Serena and Mina were there, and sure enough, Serena was stuffing her face.

"Serena, Mina. How are you two doing?" Lita asked, walking up to their table with Raye in tow.

Serena yawned loudly. "I'm tired."

"You're always tired," Mina said, sipping her tea. "I'm doing good, Lita. How about you?"

"Raye and I just got kicked out of the shooting range. I kinda violated the range rules, so Akamatsu is super pissed right now."

"Fire on full automatic?" Mina guessed.

Lita smiled awkwardly. "Yeah. Shouldn't have, but it was fun."

"Just don't do it next time," Mina lightly admonished.

"Mmm-hmm," Serena added, through a mouthful of tonkatsu.

"You're such a fatass," Raye said, noting that Serena's plate was full of tonkatsu, rice, curry, tempura, miso soup and ramen.

"I really don't care," Serena shot back, taking another bite of tonkatsu. "It's all free anyway, and if I'm going to be putting my life on the line for the country, then I'm going to get all the free food I want."

Raye just rolled her eyes and walked over to the buffet line. Lita followed her, but she was only going to get coffee.

"Oh, hi again." The line cook was still there, and he was still chirpy as ever. "What can I get you?"

"Just some coffee."

"Sure, just grab a cup and I can fill you up."

Some coffee cups had magically appeared next to the plates at the buffet line; Lita didn't remember those being there this morning…

"FK in the coffee?" Lita looked at the side of her cup, and saw that one of the staff members had written that there.

"Dunno what that means," the line cook replied. He filled the cup up with coffee and stirred in cream and sugar.

"Thanks." She took the coffee cup and walked back to her table.

"Hey, just to let you know," the line cook said to her, "We've got your favorite tonight. Meatloaf and cherry pie."
"Thanks!" That certainly made Lita a little bit happier. She went back to the table; Raye was still getting her food.

"Aren't you going to get anything else?" Mina asked, playing with her long, golden hair.

"I had a big breakfast earlier."

"With Amy, right?" Serena said. "I heard Kawasaki yelling at her outside of my room today. That's what woke me up!"

"What time did you get up anyway?"

"Unlike you, I get up at a reasonable time," Serena beamed. "1120 this morning!"

"What were you doing last night?!" Lita couldn't believe that she would still sleep in like that.

Serena scratched her head. "Well, me, Raye and Mina here had some nice sake."

"Actually, it was a couple of bottles of the stuff," Mina giggled. "We got trashed last night."

"Raye stole it from Iwasaki's office," Serena whispered. "He's going to be so pissed."

"When isn't he pissed?" Lita said back.

"True point. And what were you and Amy going last night?" Serena raised her eyebrows at the suggestive statement. "Hmm? Hmm?"

"Amy was doing her thing with technology stuff and I was asleep, thank you very much," Lita said back. She took a sip of coffee, enjoying the creamy sweet deliciousness. And the caffeine.

"Bullshit," Mina said. "I bet you two were snogging in your room last night."

"Mina, you're one to talk," Lita glared. "You're probably the most experienced one here out of all of us."

"Hey, what about me?" Serena asked.

Mina tried not to scoff too much at that. "Right…"

Lita drank so more coffee before trying to pry more information out of Mina. "So, what experiences do YOU have with guys. Or girls. Whatever." Lita was sure that Mina was an experienced professional, and her guile skills had to come from somewhere, right?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she smiled, sipping the last of her tea. "Oh, look at the time. I've got to go meet with Nurse Kuroi. Something about another checkup or something like that."

That made Lita roll her eyes. "Yeah, sure, excuses."

Raye came back with her tray of food, which was quite similar to Serena's actually.

"Oh, and you say I'm a fatass?" Serena looked at the food, and seriously contemplated getting thirds.

"Shut up, I'm hungry," Raye glared, sitting down. As she was sitting down, Lita remembered that Nurse Kuroi wanted her to go to that psychology appointment.

"Hey, Kuroi wanted me to remind you that you have an appointment tomorrow with the psychologist."

That made Raye immediately freeze up. Her chopsticks suddenly started to tremble, and she had a faraway look on her face.

"Look, I'm sorry, that's all she wanted to say." Lita tried to make the situation better, but it was quickly spiraling out of control.

"Raye…Raye!" Mina snapped her fingers in front of her and tried to get her back to reality. "She's having a panic attack. Serena, get one of the doctors to come down here immediately."

Serena immediately bolted from her chair and went running for the hallway.

"Raye, listen to me, it's okay, you're here and we're safe," Mina said, looking her straight in the eyes. "You're fine."

"No…no…I'm not fine…grandpa…grandpa…"

Lita tried to offer her two cents. "I know you're grandpa died, but you have to at least keep it together until one of the doctors arrives, please."

"I…I…" They were quickly losing her, and they had to do something quick.

Mina came up with something. "Raye, tell me a funny story that happened with him or something like that."

That seemed to do the trick. "There was this one time, he was flirting with some of the other miko at the temple and one of them slapped him. Then I had to slap him from slapping her back…and it turned into a slapping contest…"

Dr. Kobayashi and Nurse Kuroi came flying into the cafeteria, along with Serena, a couple of medical assistants and technicians.

"I'm here, what's the problem?" he said to Mina. He took one look at Raye.

"Oh. Guys, get her to an isolation room and prepare the sedative."

"On it."

"Raye, look at me," Mina said. "These guys are going to make everything better."

"I don't want to feel better…" Raye replied softly.

"Trust me, you want to feel better. I do. Everyone does."

A medical assistant ran up with a sedative, and Nurse Kuroi prepped Raye's left arm for the injection.

Mina put her fingers in front of her mouth. "Shh…everything is going to be alright."

The assistant injected the sedative, and Raye's eyes rolled back into her head. She was out.

"Okay, let's get her onto the stretcher and get her to isolation," Kobayashi said to the gaggle of medical people there would had responded to the incident. Moving quickly, they hefted her onto the streatcher and in a flash, she was gone.

"Thanks for that," Dr. Kobayashi said to Mina and Lita.

Lita looked down at the ground in shame. "I think I might have caused it…"

"There's a lot of things that can cause panic attacks," Dr. Kobayashi said. "It's not my specialty, but this is part of the de-stressing process. Raye's been having a bad time lately, and I think skipping that psychology session was a bad idea on her part."

"I don't know what to do now." Lita looked at her now cold coffee, and wondered what could be done for her.

"I can try to talk to her, at least," she offered after a moment of thought.

"That would be good," Dr. Kobayashi agreed. "Once she's had some time to rest, I'll give you a call."

"Thanks." Dr. Kobayashi and Nurse Kuroi left, after thanking Mina once more for her good work, and they were alone again.

"That was really scary," Mina said, collecting her tray and standing up. "I hope that doesn't happen again."

Lita nodded. "Me too."

"Well, I really have to get going, and now that Kuroi-sensei has seen me here, she really wants me to get that paperwork done."

"Okay. See you later."

It was 1400hrs. Lita had another cup of coffee and went back to her room to play some games on the computer…when was the Steam sale again? Thank god for Swiss bank accounts. Maybe she would watch movies too…or do both. She was just walking down the hallway, trying to go over what had just happened in the cafeteria when she happened upon Kawasaki and Iwasaki.

"And I'm trying to keep Amy out of the labs downstairs, but she keeps…oh, hello Lita." Dr. Kawasaki was talking to Colonel Iwasaki in the hallway, and Lita had probably just walked onto an important conversation.

"I'll finish this later," he said to Iwasaki. Iwasaki nodded, and then marched off down the hall and up the stairs to his office.

"Did you tell Raye to come to the psychologist tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes, I did. But she suffered a panic attack and she's under sedation right now."

"Oh. That's not good." He frowned a little bit. "She really must be going through a lot."

Lita could only nod at his statement. "I'm going to be talking with her later today, once she wakes up. Perhaps talk some sense into her."

Kawasaki seemed to agree with that. "That sounds good." He paused for a second, trying to collect his thoughts.

"I'm sorry what happened Monday," he sighed. "I guess the stress of the missions really got to everyone." Kawasaki tried not to mention the fact that he had suggested that they shouldn't do more surgery on them, or anything for that matter. But after a nice "makeup" session with Nurse Kuroi and a talking to by Dr. Kobayashi made him at least agree to the psychologist. They had her on standby, but they weren't exactly sure how to use her in this type of situation. So they just stuck her with the four SAILOR team members that had shown up on Tuesday and let her do her thing. Somehow, it made everything better, at least temporarily.

"It did. And with Raye's grandfather dying and all…she's a bit shook up."

"Well, if you could get her to agree to see the psychologist tomorrow, that would be extreme helpful."

"I'll try."

"Thanks."

With that, Dr. Kawasaki was running off toward his office, trying to get yet more paperwork done.

"Dr. Kobayashi paging Miss Kino. Dr. Kobayashi paging Miss Kino, please meet in the Isolation ward." The voice over the PA system brought Lita back into reality.

"Well, looks like Raye is up." Lita powered down her computer and walked toward the door. That game of Civilization V had really taken up her time; it was 1700hrs. Say what you want about video games, but there was something to be said about one that could take your time just like that. Moving quickly, she sprinted toward the place where Raye was being kept.

"Lita, thanks for coming down here so quickly," Dr. Kobayashi said, as she entered the isolation ward. "She's just lying still in there."

Lita peered into the small window that was on the door to the isolation cell. True to form, Raye was just lying there, unmoving. "Okay. I don't come out, send in the rescue team."

That got a chuckle. "Will do. Just buzz the button on the wall there and we'll let you out."

Lita frowned at that. "I don't remember those being there…"

"We just put them in."

"Uh-huh." Lita gave Dr. Kobayashi a look, but opened the door and went into the room.

The whiteness of the room was blinding; memories of her first stay in these god-awful rooms came flashing back. Pushing those aside however, Lita went to Raye's side and knelt down.

"Hey, how are you doing?" she asked.

No response.

"If you don't want to say anything, then, you don't have to. But we're here for you, if you need us." She took Raye's hand and held it there. Minutes passed as the two of them just lay there, not moving, not talking, not doing anything.

"Your hand is kinda cold," Raye suddenly complained. Lita looked at which hand she was using; predictably, she was holding Raye's hand with her prosthetic one.

"Sorry." She switched hands out. Hoping that would at least do some good, Lita pressed on.

"Raye, look, you have to see someone."

"I don't want to fucking see anyone!" Raye spat back. "Just leave me alone."

"Raye…"

"Piss off, Lita," Raye snarled.

"You don't mean that." Lita stayed put.

There was more hand holding. Despite Raye's stubbornness, she was really hurting. Everyone was, and the breakdown at the cafeteria was just the tip of the iceberg.

"I'm here for you," Lita cooed. "Just…let us help you. The psychologist…I know it sounds strange, but it was helpful. Just go, you don't have anything to lose, okay? It's not like they're going to put you on meds again…"

Lita didn't know how long she stayed there, just letting Raye decompress after a very stressful event. It was what some people needed after that sort of an event. Some people lashed out and screamed and fought. That was more up Raye's ally, but this was personal. So she shut it all in and bottled it up. The problem with that was at some point, was all going to explode, and at not at an opportune time. The most little of things could set it off; a snide remark here, a person cutting in line, a hurtful email could release a torrent of emotions that would be impossible to contain. Lita's remark about the appointment just caused her to batten down the hatches and to close off the world, but it wasn't going to help. Not when there was so much at stake here.

An hour or so passed before Lita got up. Her legs were a bit stiff, but no matter.

"I'm going to get something to eat. I'll be back."

She started walking toward the door when Raye said something.

"I'll go."

It was a quiet statement, unlike the normal Raye who was loud and proud. Lita just nodded at Raye. She had made her decision.

"Come on, let's go get dinner."

That relaxed her and soothed whatever tensions and emotions that had been going on in Raye's mind for the day. She smiled, finally. "Now you're talking."

Lita hit the button to exit, and the door unlocked.

"Thanks, Lita," Raye said to her, grateful.

"No problem."

The rest of the night went without any drama or action, besides accidentally dropping her cherry pie on Amy. Lita retired to her room, exhausted from the long day and the events that had just transpired. Closing the door behind her, she popped off her arm and set it on the stand next to her bed. After showering and changing into her nightgown, Lita hopped into bed and turned out the light. Pulling the covers over her, she felt the coolness of the sheets wash over her and rock her to sleep.

Today had been a good day, after all.