Note: This one shot is based on a scene in the Disconnect episode of Season 2, after Sara escaped from Kellerman and she's sitting in a bathroom stall.
Alone Again
Sara Tancredi is alone again. It doesn't come as a surprise to her. And really, it's not such a bad thing, she tries to convince herself.
When you come face to face with your own demons and faults, it's sometimes better not to have disapproving heads shaking or judgemental eyes focused in your direction. But then again, she wouldn't mind a sympathetic ear either, a warm embrace or a strong shoulder to lean on from time to time.
How long ago was it that she sat with Michael in that motel room cleaning his arm? Was it hours? Was it days? Time has become fluid. Things seem to speed up and slow down without her having any control over it. The same way that her thoughts now seem to refuse to heed her attempts to contain them.
The only thing that she's certain of is that right now, she's alone again. She's sitting in a little used public toilet cubicle, in some unnamed town, with the astringent smell of disinfectant in the air and an overwhelming pain in her arm. If she wanted to, she could blame the tears that are threatening to spill over, on that eye tearing smell. But who is she fooling? There is no one else here but her.
She lights a match with shaky hands and holds it under the needle. An odd comfort envelops her. How ironic, another quiet hiding place with only a needle and her mistakes for company. But this needle is not here to take the pain away. No, this one is going to cause her unimaginable agony. Well technically the others did too, she thinks to herself.
She sniffs loudly as she threads the string through the eye, unable to stop her tears now.
Scenes from the past weeks flash before her like a slideshow. It is as if she's watching someone else's life. An unlocked door, a crushed heart, a man hanging from a ceiling, a woman shot in the chest, her head under water. That one makes her gasp as if she still has the urge to draw much needed air into her lungs.
With her hand hovering above her wound she looses her nerve for a moment and wishes she had something, anything, to numb both the fear and pain that is surging through her body. But she is not going to do that - not today. She will do this without morphine, without whiskey.
Her instinctive need to heal people has come at an enormous cost. Watching the ones she couldn't help, die, became a burden that she just couldn't take. She needed to lighten the load. Some people turn to God, others find strength within themselves. She escaped with morphine. At first just to get away from the pain, but then, it was for no other reason that to chase the next high.
She slams the side of her fist into the cubicle wall. Once, twice, three times. And then plunges the
needle into her flesh, sewing herself up. It's a crude method of fixing. But when you are alone as often as she is, with only yourself to count on to repair your mistakes; you make do with what you have.