Lisa used to envy Claudia.

She never admitted it, of course; she was supposed to be the one who didn't need anything or anybody other than her uniform and a ship. But beneath the starched white cloth of her First Officer suit beat a heart that still bled, and that remembered.

So whenever Roy showed up on their doorstep, his blonde hair falling into his eyes, his tall frame filling the doorway, an insouciant grin on his face, Lisa would step aside and let him in and watch him kiss Claudia hello -- and feel envy.

Later, when she was trying to watch the news or catch up on paperwork, and she would hear the giggling and tussling coming from the bedroom, she'd feel something else.

It wasn't anything she allowed herself to dwell on; she knew how she came across to the opposite sex, and had resigned herself to a solitary life of service, one that would fill her days and exhaust her enough to force her into a dead sleep each night. She was the best at what she did, and she fully expected that to be enough.

And when she came down to breakfast to find a shirtless Roy sitting at their tiny kitchen table, grabbing a quick cup of coffee before heading back to his own barracks, well, at least she was finally starting to get her blushing under control.

"You could have one too, you know," Claudia would say tartly as she pulled her uniform on over lacy lavender underwear. "Or haven't you noticed we're surrounded by cute fighter pilots? Just let your hair down, for once!"

Lisa's hand would fly involuntarily to her thick coiled brown hair, then go to her hip. "You know I don't have time for that sort of thing, Claudia," she'd say with her best superior air. "Captain Gloval is depending on me and --"

"Suit yourself," Claudia always said with a shrug, but Lisa could see the pity in her eyes.

(Considering that when Lisa did fall in love again, it was an unmitigated disaster, Claudia probably shouldn't have wasted her energy on pity, then. She had plenty of time for that later.)

But when Roy died...when Roy died, the playing field became even. Claudia possessed the terrible knowledge Lisa had owned for too long, how it felt to have loved and lost, to be left half a person, ensnared in shadow. Envy was no longer a component of Lisa's feelings for Claudia; she wouldn't have traded places with her for all the world. Envy is a fragile thing; its lifespan rarely outlasts tragedy.

Pictures are all she has of Claudia, now; pictures and memories. There's one in particular that she loves: a shot of Claudia and Roy taken days before the SDF-1 launch, the two of them hugging fiercely in front of Roy's Veritech. Roy's hair is blinding in the sun, and Claudia's dark skin gleams with her happiness. Lisa remembers the tug on her heart as she snapped the picture, and the way she pushed the familiar feeling to the side. She's glad that she can now look at the picture with nothing but the same pure happiness Claudia and Roy beam back at her from their piece of immortality. In a twist none of them would have predicted, Lisa has become the one who's envied, now -- she hears the scuttlebutt, has diverted more than one woman's attempt to throw herself at Lisa's husband.

She wishes she could tell them that it's not worth it, in the end. That envy accomplishes nothing. That you have to forge your own happiness. That friendship is worth more than all the envy in the universe.

And she wishes Claudia were here, so she could tell her.