With a soft groan Livy rubbed at her eyes. Her nights and days off when she didn't have class was now devoted to studying for the finals for her summer classes. With beginning Abnormal Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Computer Investigation Forensics and Criminalistics and Crime Analysis exams all within the same week time frame she was wondering how she was going to be able to work any hours at all in the up coming weeks if she wanted to actually pass the exams.

Sighing as she hunched back over her notebook she began to scribble down, being sure to keep her hand from smearing the ink as she wrote across the page. She hated being a leftie sometimes... Pencil smudged, ink ran and smeared... What was a poor leftie to do these days? She didn't have the funds to get a laptop. Well she was going to, but then her bike needed some work and tuition for fall classes was due soon... And sure the department reimbursed her for the most part, but she still had to pay for them first. That was the only kicker really.

Now...

Yeah... Drugs could alter a persons mind to make them do a lot of things they wouldn't normally do... But when you knew a person wasn't on drugs... They had no clear motive to commit the crime... What could you do?

Ah, lovely questions to make them think... Professor Holmes always loved giving those...

But thinking ten thirty at night wasn't always a specialty of Livy's really. Well it would have to be tonight seeing as how she had about another eight of these review questions to go.

'If there was no clear motive of the offender... Then you either had to find a plausible one and if you couldn't, you had to look for someone else who would have had motive.' Livy scratched down. 'Random Acts of violence are completely rare and are unlikely to happen.'

But this was 'Abnormal' Psychology wasn't it?

'If there is no clear motive and no drug use. One could suspect there is a natural chemical imbalance in the offenders body that could have spurred on the act. Even if there is no history of mental illness in the family, it would be wise for the offender to be looked over. After all, many who are found to have such problems may not be aware of it and-'

And what.

God it was too late to be working on homework... The library would be closing in thirty minutes... So she had a bit of time. Then she could hit the diner a few blocks from her apartment for dinner. Maybe call ahead and just pick it up... That was a plan...

At the thought of food her stomach gave an excited growl, making Livy wince as she hunched back over her papers.

Rocks for jocks, right? Geology 101 for the stupid athletes whose brains have been turned to goo by all the steroids they must be taking. Isabelle knew what people thought about athletes. Didn’t matter if they played football or, you know, hockey. They all must be dumb and doping up.

Well, she wasn't.

With a bad-tempered mutter, she balled up the paper she’d scribbled reams of random sentences and lobbed it towards the trash can. “Touchdown,” she said with some small satisfaction as the tightly wadded piece of paper hit the opening dead-center. Then, with a sigh, she turned back to her notebook, resisting the urge to stab it with her pen.

“It’s only the English language. Not like I’m gonna, you know, use it that much,” she told herself sarcastically. “Think. It’s a persuasive essay. Not that hard, you know. You like arguing about stuff. So pick a topic and start arguing. And stop talking to yourself. God.” Running her hands over her face, Isabelle cursed as she nearly poked herself in the eye with her pen.

With a huge yawn, she kicked back, stretching her arms out and staring at the ceiling. “Look on the bright side. You got the chemistry and the psychology analysis done. Sure, we were hoping for a hat trick, but really. How good would a paper be when you’re writing it at ten-thirty on four hours sleep? Not that it’s ever going to be that good, but hey. And, dammit, didn’t I tell you to stop talking to yourself?”

That’s it. She was calling it a night. Running a hand through her short blond hair, Isabelle clicked her pen and began cramming her stuff back into her bookbag. Damn thing probably weighed thirty pounds, what with her chemistry book, psych book, two English books, and her notebooks stuffed into it. She lifted it with one hand, swung it effortlessly over one shoulder, then accidentally kicked her water bottle as she pushed her chair back. It rolled away and Isabelle, muttering, was forced to chase after it as it came to a stop underneath a girl’s chair.

“Stupid bottle. Stupid English language.” Isabelle pressed her palms to her eyes. “Hey,” she greeted the other girl, “so, you got homework too or is this a cram session?”

Livy was mouthing silently as she continued to jot down the notes, moving from one notebook to the essay again and again as she sorted out the information.

But her train of thought kept getting interrupted by a girl a few tables away who had the irritating habit of talking to herself... Usually Livy wouldn't have minded a whole hell of a lot but... This was a library and she had things to be doing.

She held back a satisfied sigh of silence as the girl got up and made to leave, once more becoming absorbed in her assignments and notes.

The voice startled her slightly, making her jump and turn her face with a slight scowl, narowing her green eyes slightly as she looked over the girl who had already been talking to herself, but now she was talking to her. Great...

"I don't cram,it's a bad habit. Homework and exam review if that's okay with you." She said in a quiet voice to hopefully indicate to the girl to keep hers down as well. Sure there wasn't a lot of people here now, but there were still a fair few who probably didn't want their work bothered.

"And persuasive essays are not just arguing." She said pointedly before turning back around, her eyes skimming over what she had written so far on the essay.


((Heh, the talking outloud thing put her in a bit of a mood :-P))

Isabelle arched her eyebrows a little at the girl's snippy, if quiet, response. "It's just fine with me," she replied easily, deciding it would probably be a bad idea to reply in turn. Crap. When did she ever not go with the bad idea? Was she becoming--oh horror of horrors--a little responsible?

Mulling that over, it occurred to her that even if the two of them did get into anything of a scrap, whether verbally or otherwise, she could probably break the other girl in half. If she wanted to. Aha, not so responsible now, are we?

Isabelle became very strange on little sleep.

"'Sides, I was just figuring I ought to say something before crawling around underneath your seat. Seemed the polite thing to do, you know?" she added, crouching to pick up her water bottle. Couldn't leave without it. The supposedly unbreakable thing had cost five bucks. For a water bottle with the DU Chargers logo.

Ripoff.

Still crouching, she glanced up at the girl. "Sure it is. You take a stand and try to get other people to agree with you. Definition of persuading and arguing. Although persuading's typically less, mmm, fervent than arguing."

Yeah, if the girl did try to fight she'd probably win because hitting back? That would get her in trouble with the department if word ever got back to them about it. As an officer she was supposed to use every other avalible tactic to avoid a fight or get in big trouble. Even fired.

But the thought really hadn't crossed her mind as she wasn't really one for violence anyway. There was no point in it.

"A simple 'excuse me' woudl have done wonders..." Her voice was a mumble, not because she didn't want to talk to the girl or seem like a reasonable person, but simply because her mind was distracted as she finished off a paragraph to the current responce she was writing.

God she really didn't want to be here. She would rather be doing anything than sitting here. doing school work. It was a nice Thursday night... The clubs and bars were open for her enjoyment and damn... She was here studying.

Groaning for a moment. she let her head fall on to the table and papers in front of her.

"Arguing is also people going back and forth on different sides... Persuasion is one person talking at the moment. Debating is closer to arguing though. It's just arguing with less emotiona points and less shouting." She said with a sigh against the papers.

Isabelle hadn't actually been considering starting and/or participating in a fight with the girl. Sure, she'd had her scraps every now and then (or possibly the term was now and again and again) but it wasn't like she went around with her fists raised and ready. Nah, she liked to think of herself as a fairly patient person--just one with a slightly above-average temper, you know?

In other words, she wouldn't clock you unless you really, really deserved it. Which was generous of her, really.

"Well, excuse me, then. I'll remember that for future reference," Isabelle replied, this time with a touch of sarcasm. Just a touch. Standing and fiddling with hooking it to her bookbag, she shook her head and started to walk away, just as the other girl started talking again.

It was funny. Did the girl want her to leave or to have a conversation? Raising her eyebrows as she watched the girl's head hit the table with a soft but definite thunk, Isabelle shrugged slightly. "Persuading, arguing, debating. Central theme is taking a stand and trying to get other people to agree with you. 'Sides, that's not the problem. Problem's trying to figure out what stand to take."

"Maybe for you." Livy responded with a small snicker. Perhaps for people who didn't know what they wanted, sure that might be a problem. People who couldn't make up their minds.

But Livy was a desicive creature who knew what she wanted most of the time.

Her only problem was geting people to listen to her, notice her. Even in uniform she wasn't much of an authority figure. She wasn't much of a apparent threat. That was why she always had to end up chasing the bastards and beating them into submision.

A very tedious thing really... Time consuming and required a lot more paperwork.

"God I wanna get out of here... I need a drink or something before I go fucken crazy..." She muttered. But she didn't want to go alone... That wasn't any fun... And it was too late to call up any friends really, so she couldn't do that....

And she deffinantly didn't want to just go and flirt with some guy...

"Hey, you wanna go get a beer or something?" She said as she slammed her book shut, getting a 'ssshh' from a woman near by.

Isabelle decided not to take offense at Olivia's little snicker. Instead, she settled for raising her eyebrow once more. "Yeah, I've got that problem. The one where I see the world in the shades of grey it actually exists in," she replied coolly.

She didn't like people who only saw one side of an argument. People who looked at the world through black-and-white glasses tended to be narrow-minded and annoying. And Isabelle, being rather combative despite (as she saw it) also being open-minded, often ended up at odds with them.

Which meant, unfortunately, a punch usually ended up being thrown. Although, in Isabelle's defense, it wasn't always her punch.

A little surprised at the girl's sudden offer of getting a drink, as she didn't often invite people who clearly annoyed her out to drinks, she gave a 'what-the-heck' shrug. "Yeah, sure," the blond girl replied, even as she told herself she really needed to get some sleep, not a drink.

Besides, she didn't drink much alcohol anyway. Too many carbs. But hey, with practice starting, it wouldn't be too bad to cut herself a little slack.

She hadn't really heard what the girl said, as she was packing her things as quick as she could.

"Awesome." She grinned as the girl agreed to go out for a drink. It wasn't like the girl was annoying her, she was just irritated in general right? Yeeeah. "I wanna hit the White Mice if that's okay with you. Or of you know a new place or a better place, I'm open for suggestions." She said as she slung her messenger bag over her shoulder.

"Oh! I'm Livy by the way! Criminal Justice Major at DU." She said as she offered her hand to the other girl. A college student like her she was assuming from the mug that she saw in the young woman's hand. "What about you? You go to DU too? What are you studying?"

"The White Mice?" Isabelle repeated. She'd heard of the place, of course, but, well... she wasn't really a party sort of person and from what she knew the White Mice was a party sort of place. But she shrugged and replied, "Yeah, whatever." It wasn't like she knew of any better place.

"Criminal Justice, eh?" Girl didn't look much like a cop, Isabelle reflected. Of course, she didn't know any girl cops, so pretty much her mental image of one was either the blond from the Silent Hill movie (which sucked, by the way) or the awesome Amelia Sachs in those books.

Grasping Livy's much smaller hand in hers, Isabelle found herself looking down at the girl's head once she (Isabelle) stood up. Livy here probably didn't top out at more than five feet, which put her at a solid eleven inches shorter than Isabelle. (And how Isabelle wished she'd squeaked that last inch... maybe if she had hit six feet college scouts would have taken her more seriously. One damn inch.)

"Isabelle. Carr. Most people call me one or the other. Yeah, I go to DU. So far I'm just doing a general ed major, but I'm thinking of sociology." It was, naturally, her dream to play pro football, but Isabelle knew the odds of that happening were extremely not in her favor. She either wanted to teach sociology, at the college level, or maybe do sports med. Or become a psychologist.

"Kick ass." She ginned as she shrugged the strap of her bag further up her shoulder. "Let's get moving. I've been sitting still for faar to long." She said as she looked up at Isabelle. "Damn... There are really times I hate being so short." She chuckled slightly as she moved past her. "But hey, it can pay out too."

"Isabelle? I used to go to school with an Isabelle. She was a lot shorter though. Everyone called her Izzy." She nodded. But of course, if she didn't like Izzy, she wasn't going to call her that.

"Sociology though? Cool. I've taken a few classes with that. They were actually kinda fun." She nodded again, a little habit of hers really. "I'm really hoping to graduate a bit early though. Get off the streets faster to what I want to do. I want to work in Juvenal Justice. I always thought it would be fun. Work as a counselor or something. I wouldn't bee to intimidating to them, so they might be able to talk to me easier, or that's what I think anyway."

At this point her voice was at it's normal level as they made their way into the entrance hall.

"God I can't wait to get on the dance floor..." She nearly moaned with anticipation.

Isabelle shifted her bag a little as Livy commented on the difference in their heights. Normally, she didn't care about being tall, but you had to admit it was really kind of awkward to be towering over people. Besides, most of the people she hung out with were taller than she was.

Hell, even Jeff the kicker was six-one.

"A kid at my school called me Izzy for a while. I didn't like it." Isabelle grinned at the memory. "I told him stop, he said no, and I got him right in the jaw. Pow. Little jackass..." She'd been in second grade at the time.

She fell silent, listening to the other girl talk about her future plans. "Juvie, huh? I don't think I could deal with criminal kids. I'd just wanna hit them all."