Soldiers Don't Cry By Senior Lieutenant Elissabeth Marksbury His words stung. They cut the deepest coming from James, too. She wasn't wrong - couldn't afford to be wrong... and yet, something was nagging at the back of her mind. Maybe, just maybe she was. Lissi knew she had been pushing hard, just as hard as she had been pushed once upon a time. But this wasn't a war ravaged time. They didn't train their troops with desperation like they will 500 years from now. She had fallen into Lyryn Cate's patterns, not the lighter, more human Elissabeth Marksbury. She ran her hands through her hair, gathering it off her face and lifting it from the back of her neck. Letting it run through her fingers and fall into place once again, she stood and moved to the viewport. And, yeah, emotion, the one that makes you cry, or laugh. You know? Yeah, she knew. Just not how to express it. Not how to let go. "Soldiers don't cry," she mimicked her father in a very small voice. So often, of late, had she felt the sting of tears, but it was wrong. It just felt wrong to follow through with it. A shame, an embarrassment. She was so good at biting them back, going on and keeping busy. And up to this point it had served her well. Never had she had these problems before. Never had people wanted to relate to her on an emotional level like this. Well, Maturin, but she never understood that then. Only now with Skyler and James and even some of the team members reaching out and trying to make a connection with her... It just boggled her mind. Resting her head upon the cool glass of the viewport, she wasn't sure what to do. Unsure how to proceed. She couldn't afford to be wrong... --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! ? Try it today!