A/N: I know, I probably have no business starting another multi-chapter story right now, but this idea has been rolling around in my brain ever since I watched episode 5.07, and I wanted to at least start getting it posted before it drove me crazy :)

In terms of the timeline, this story picks up right after episode 5.07. This first chapter is a bit shorter than my usual chapters, but they will get longer as we get deeper into the story. There will be a lot of character exploration here, along with some fun relationships that we'll probably never see on the show. I can't tell you right now which ones those will be, though, becaue I don't want to give away too much of the story.

Please feel free to leave a review - I welcome all comments, good, bad or indifferent. Your thoughts are important to me, so please let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters contained in this story. I claim no rights to them and I make no profit from them.

Enough of my ramblings and on with the story...

Stella Bonasera sighed heavily as she unlocked her car and climbed into the driver's seat. Today had been one of those days when she wished she had chosen to become a stockbroker or an engineer or maybe an airline pilot – anything other than a cop. To those detectives who said that there was nothing harder than working the case of a murdered child, she had an answer: working the case of a murdered foster child when you yourself were a former foster child.

She was amazed that she'd managed to hold it together as long as she had. She'd made it through the autopsy with Sid, the multiple interrogations, she'd even managed to sit there and listen to the abusive foster mother confess. She had somehow survived, making it through the day without breaking down. At that moment, though, there was nothing she wanted more than to curl up on her couch with a bottle of red wine and forget the day had ever happened.

It was almost as though she were on autopilot as she drove to the liquor store and walked through the door, quickly buying two bottles of relatively inexpensive wine and a corkscrew before returning to her car and driving back to her apartment.

Once inside, she dropped her bag in the entryway and headed into the kitchen. Opening her cupboard, she dug around until she found a glass – not a wine glass, but she figured that it would do well enough for tonight. As she uncorked the first bottle, she bit her lower lip to keep the tears from falling. Pouring herself that first glass, she paused to enjoy the familiar smell as it splashed into the cup.

Three hours later, Stella slowly walked into a nondescript building in downtown Manhattan and headed straight for the familiar back conference room. Slipping into a seat in the circle, she stared intently at her shoes as she waited for the rest of that evening's group to arrive.

When it finally came time for her to speak, she was surprised to find her voice shaking so much that she could barely understand her own words.

"It just seems that every time you get comfortable with something, every time the past finally seems to be staying in the past, the universe throws you another curve ball," she said, noting the understanding in the eyes of the others. "There's been some stuff in my life that's bringing up memories that I'd really rather forget, and I've been thinking a lot lately about how this all started…I was ten years old when I had my first drink, twenty-one the first time I came to one of these meetings and thirty-seven the day I had my last drink, 372 days ago. I almost lost all that tonight, though. I had the drink in my hand, ready to throw away all that hard work. I still don't know why I didn't, to be honest, and I think that's the part that scares me the most. Yeah, I'm disappointed and frustrated that I let myself get that close to losing my sobriety, but I can understand the events that led up to that. I can process what happened and I can figure out a plan to stop it the next time it starts. What I can't understand is what it was that made me pour that drink down the drain and come here instead…and I'm absolutely terrified that if I don't know what it is that made me stop, the next time I get that close, I won't stop and I'll be right back where I started."

As much as she tried to listen to the statements of those who followed her, Stella found her mind drifting in and out of the meeting. When the young woman sitting directly across from her began to speak, though, she found herself curiously drawn in by the strange familiarity of her voice.

"This is my third meeting," the young woman said. "I guess you could say I'm still waiting for it all to sink in or something. I know that I have a problem, I know that I'm an alcoholic, and I know admitting it is a big step, but it's the ones that come after that seem to be causing me problems. Like I said, it's my third meeting in two weeks…I haven't made it very far with the others, though. My last drink was an hour and a half ago, and I really don't know how I'm going to make it another hour, let alone another day. My family has no idea that I'm here. They know that I'm the screw-up in their perfect little world, but they don't know how bad it is, how big the problem has become. After my first meeting, I made it three days before I had another drink; after the second, I only made it two. I really need this time to work, because I'm just so tired of failing at everything…so tired of disappointing everyone in my life."

"How do you do it?"

Stella turned around from where she was pouring herself a cup of coffee to find herself face to face with the young woman who had caught her attention earlier.

"Do what?" she asked.

"Make it so long," the young woman said nervously. "I can't even make it more than a day or two, and you said it had been over a year for you…how do you do it?"

"It isn't easy," Stella said. "I've slipped up so many times. Heck, this isn't even my first time making it past the one year mark. Sometimes you can take it day by day, other times it's all you can do just to make it from one hour to the next."

"I don't know if I can do it," the young woman said, an air of defeat in her voice. "I keep waiting for something to just click, you know?"

"It only works like that in the movies," Stella smiled. "Do you have a sponsor yet?"

"Not yet," the young woman said. "There was a woman who offered at my first meeting, but I don't know, I just felt guilty after I slipped up, so I never called her."

"Come on," Stella said, dropping her untouched coffee into the trash can. "I'll buy you a cup of real coffee and we'll chat."

"Really?" the young woman asked.

"Really," Stella nodded, extending her hand. "I'm Stella, by the way."

"Samantha," Samantha replied, shaking Stella's hand.

"My family's all perfect," Samantha said, staring dejectedly into her mug of coffee as she sat across the table from Stella. "My dad had all these plans for my brother and I. My brother, well, sure he got into a little trouble when we teenagers, but for the most part, he's always been the dutiful son, living the life that Daddy-dearest planned out for him."

"But you wanted something different," Stella said.

"I never knew what I wanted," Samantha said. "Other than that I knew I didn't want what he wanted for me. My father, well, he's very old-school, I guess you could say. There was no real option: I'd get a job after I graduated high school, work for a few years as a secretary or something, and then get married and be a dutiful little housewife, just like my mother."

"Not much of a choice," Stella said.

"I know, right?" Samantha laughed. "So, I spent my high school years getting into as much trouble as I possibly could. I wasn't much of a drinker back then…not until my senior year, at least. Ever since then, I've been sort of drifting, you know? Moving from one bartending gig to the next, hanging out with the wrong crowd, trying to have as much fun as I could."

"What changed?" Stella asked.

"What do you mean?" Samantha asked.

"You lived that way for years, Samantha," Stella said. "But now you're here, sitting in a coffee shop with me and getting yourself ready to work the program. Why? What brought you here?"

"I'm not really sure," Samantha admitted. "My brother…he came by to see me a few weeks ago, and I couldn't even let him up, because I'd already been through half a bottle of whiskey and it wasn't even three o'clock yet. He would have been so disappointed if he'd seen that – there he was, making this really sweet gesture to apologize to me, when, as usual, I was the one screwing up. I don't want to do that anymore, Stella. I don't want to be that person anymore. The rest of my family, they've all written me off as a lost cause. He was the only one who hadn't, but now…now it's been almost three weeks since that day and he hasn't called, he hasn't come by, he hasn't made one single effort to contact me. I think…I think I lost him, too."

Stella simply nodded, her hand resting on Samantha's in the middle of the table as the younger woman broke down and cried.

"Does it get better?" Samantha asked. "Can I get him back?"

"Possibly," Stella said. "Some people forgive more easily than others. You'll get your chance to apologize and ask for that forgiveness when you get to that step of the program. That's a bridge you have to cross when you get to it, though. First things first, we have to get you sober and keep you sober."

"We?" Samantha asked quietly.

"This isn't something you can do alone," Stella said. "That's why you need a sponsor, someone who you can call at any time of day or night, someone who'll talk you off that ledge and see you through the steps."

"And you'll do that?" Samantha asked.

"If you want me to, yes," Stella said.

"Okay then," Samantha nodded. "So, what do I do first?"