Author's Note: Wow sorry about the extreme delay in posting. I lost my muse for a bit, combined with other life-threatening issues (i.e. the male race, school, family, work) and finally got angry at Sara for leaving the show. Not because I like her by any means, but now it's always about her still, and she isn't even part of the cast anymore!! Ugh, I give up.

Good news though! It's Sara time...

So anyway, I am going to attempt this chapter and hope I don't fail too miserably. But I hope you can bare with me through this mess I like to call "Writing from Sara's POV". And since it has been such a long time since I was two years old, or around one for that matter, I have conducted some research on two year olds.

P.S. Uh oh. Krazy found me.

- - - - -

She was exhausted. Her body ached in places she didn't even know she could ache. Her stomach had digested itself. The balls of her feet were numb. She was craving for an Sprite to cure her dry mouth. And actually the idea of a juicy Big Mac meal, large, sounded incredibly appetizing right about now...

In short, Sara Sidle was a mess as she walked into her house, just fifteen minutes from the San Francisco Crime Lab. And today had been quite easily one of the longest fifteen minute drives she had ever made.

Sara quietly shut the heavy front door behind her, glancing at her cell phone. 6:30 am. On an ideal day, that would give her almost and hour and a half of sleep before she had to worry about her little munchkin waking her up. She slipped off her shoes by the others piled in the foyer of her quaint suburban home. Not even caring about the mess strewn about her home, Sara sulked upstairs, stepping over the gate at the top. She glanced in Alicia's room, seeing her angel still asleep in her toddler bed, a bed too big for her little girl.

Alicia may have gotten her father's ridiculously good looks but she definitely got stuck with my vertically-challenged genes, Sara thought as she trumped farther down the hall. She stripped off her pants and shirt, crawling into bed in just her underwear and bra. With a long sigh, she curled up in her large bed, her fingers and toes reaching for all the cold spots under her sheets. And with one last yawn, she closed her eyes in anticipation of a much needed, and deserved, nap.

Twenty minutes later, Sara groaned at a sound that nearly brought tears of exhaustion to her eyes. "Momma!"

The sounds of little two and a half year old feet pattered across her bedroom floor, the force slamming into the side of her mattress. "Momma you're home!"

Sara rolled from her back to her side, turning her back to Alicia, this routine all too familiar to her. From the other side of the bed, Alicia's excited little body elicited tiny giggles from deep in her belly. Sara could just see her two year old daughter's body trembling with the excitement of Mom being home and it made her smile.

"Momma?" Alicia, confused as to why Sara wasn't waking up, tilted her head to one side. "Momma, you sleeping?"

She ran as fast as her little legs would allow around to Sara's side of the bed. "Momma, get up!" Alicia grabbed at Sara's closest arm, shaking it as hard as she could.

Suddenly though, Sara's eyes flew open and quicker than Alicia could react, grabbed her little girl be her sides, lifting Alicia off the ground. Alicia screamed in surprise as Sara caught her off guard, swinging her up into the air above the bed. Sara smiled to herself as she listen to her two year old screaming in fits of pure joy at their morning ritual. This was Alicia's favorite game to play with Sara: pretending to be airplane and flying above her mother. As Alicia lay suspended above Sara, arms and legs out as she flew thru the air, Sara couldn't help but notice how gorgeous her daughter was. Her brown eyes glowed as she laughed and screamed, the rays of sunrise sneaking thru the slits in the blinds making her hair glow a golden color, making it look like there was a halo atop her head. Alicia had somehow acquired a natural golden look to her skin, like a honey color, that made her stunning to Sara.

As her shoulders began to ache, Sara rolled over, bringing her little plane crashing down on the bed beside her just as her arms gave way under all twenty-four pounds of Alicia's weight. Sara wrapped her arms around Alicia, pulling her close, reveling at the warmth her tiny body was giving off. Alicia crawled under the covers before curling into Sara, burying her head in her mother's side. She listen to Sara's heartbeat, the steady pace lulling her back to sleep. Her mouth opened into a giant yawn making Sara laugh. Sara pressed a kiss into Alicia's pin-straight mess of hair before shutting her eyes again.

Hopefully for longer than twenty minutes this time, Sara thought to herself.

Right before Sara slipped into her deep sleep, she set her alarm clock, finally succumbing to the tiredness sweeping over her body. But not before she kissed her baby girl goodnight one last time.

- - - - -

Greg wandered down a flight of stairs or two, his case banging against his leg. He turned to grin at Sara before disappearing down another couple flights of stairs. Sara couldn't help but grin back at her boyfriend as she heard his footsteps echo in the cement stairwell. She turned back and climbed up the few stairs between her and the top and began there. A few minutes passed before she found the hair on the railing, stuck in dried blood. And luckily for her, the skin tag was still on the end. She bagged it with a grin and strained to hear Greg processing the scene below her.

"Don't go far!" she ordered. "Stay close and look for anything out of the ordinary."

Not long after her voice stopped carrying down the stairwell did she hear a door slam. Assuming it was Greg, she didn't react right away, assuming some trail of evidence had led him back into the hotel on a certain floor, maybe where the murder had actually started. But she called out anyway.

"Greg?" Nothing.

Sara bagged up her evidence and closed her case, wandering down towards the sound of the door. She still couldn't hear Greg and cautiously felt for the gun in her holster. After a couple of floors down she came across an emergency exit door from one of the floors and swung it open: no sign of Greg.

"Greg?" she called out again, only to be answered by a gunshot.

Sara jolted awake, short of breath and in a panic. It took her a second to recognize her surroundings, regain her bearings, when she realized it was just a dream. A nightmare actually, but just a figment of her imagination nonetheless. She looked beside her to see Alicia still sleeping, her thumb tucked in her mouth.

It had been quite some time since she had last dreamt about the accident and it shook her up just a little bit. With the recollection came many other uneasy thoughts. Her recent conversations with Grissom was one of the first things that came to mind. It was a harrowing wake-up call that first time Grissom had called her, right after Alicia had turned one. But as time went on, she looked forward to his phone calls more and more.

Though it may have been years of torment with Grissom and her heart, in the end the two had remained true friends and Sara valued his opinion above most other people she had come to know in her life. Even during the investigation regarding the accident, when things had become strained between the friends, he had still been a steady rock in supporting her with Greg's recovery. He had kept his mouth shut about her resignation letter she handed in with her maternity leave, and never tried to talk her out of her decision. Grissom had learned many years prior that there was no changing Sara's mind when it had been made. She assumed he also became someone Greg could count on, if not Nick, during the months after she had left. When she had finally spoken to Grissom for that first time, her thoughts had been confirmed, as well as the many phone calls that followed.

Greg was not a topic Sara let her mind wander to often, but it did happen occasionally. His smile was always the image that came to mind first, accompanied by his brown spikes and mess of hair. She could remember, like it was yesterday, his eagerness to learn and please and she wondered if that had been one of the reasons she knew she could get him to come with her to that crime scene. It must have been. The thought must have occurred to her, however subconsciously it may have been, at some point. And that made her sick.

She glanced over at the clock, realizing she had to be up in forty minutes and ultimately decided to fall back asleep and enjoy a lazy morning in bed with her little munchkin.

- - - - -

Sara stood in her kitchen, listening to Grissom talk as she scrubbed some dishes from their dinner the night before. Alicia sat in the other room, perched on a cushion she had pulled off the couch, clutching her blanket. Sara peeked around the corner, making sure the munchkin was still where she had left her this morning. And she was; Alicia sat cross-legged in her footsie pajamas, sucking on her thumb. Old Mickey cartoons kept her eyes captivated on the TV screen as her mother attempted to tidy up on her day off.

But she wasn't getting much accomplished as her heart kept breaking over and over as Grissom went on about Greg's sudden recovery.

"The more he remembers, the more the gap you and Alicia left in his life grows. It won't be long before he starts to remember your relationship with him, if he hasn't already."

"Has he?" Sara asked, terrified. "Has he started to remember anything about us?"

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She wasn't supposed to fall in love with Gregory Hojem Sanders. She just wasn't. That was her first mistake.

Her second mistake? Kissing him. Because when he captured her lips in his...it was all over.

And from there, the mistakes just kept coming, one after another. Her harmless crush had turned into a disaster that triggered an unforgivable series of events in both her and Greg's life. And the first mistake started off a series of mistakes. The fifth mistake? The sex. The amazing sex. The eighth mistake? Bringing Greg to that crime scene. The thirteenth mistake: leaving him.

Sara threw the sponge down, wiping her hair from her eyes with the back of her free, damp hand. Grissom continued to lecture from his end of the phone, as he sat in his office in Las Vegas, a place Sara thought she would always call home. She peered around the corner once more, checking in on Alicia before grabbing her warm cup of tea and dropping down into a kitchen chair. And somewhere in Gil's response to her last question, something had triggered a response from Sara. Something he said must have hit a nerve with her because she suddenly found herself talking, admitting feelings she hadn't admitted to anyone since she had left a little over two years ago. Or at least, anyone in Vegas.

"Are you going to do something then?"

She didn't respond to Grissom's question right away. At that same moment though, there came a knock at her front door followed by a high pitch squeal from her family room. Alicia came scrambling around the corner, cutting thru the kitchen, her feet sliding across the hardwood floors. She had discarded her blanket by the TV and was making a beeline for the foyer. Sara pushed herself up from her chair, glancing at the time on her wall clock, realizing that it was her neighbor, Katie and her little boy Jayden, coming to visit. It was her usual Sunday afternoon play-date, but she had completely forgotten today was, well, today. She opened the door, motioning for the mother and son to come in and make themselves at home. Jayden, who was just a couple weeks older than Alicia, raced towards the sounds of the TV with Alicia not far behind. Katie offered a smile to Sara, who responded with a roll of her eyes.

"Hey Grissom, I need to call you back. My work is calling me on my cell phone."

She knew Grissom wouldn't buy it, but he still responded with a kind, "Ok I'll talk with you soon. I send my love to my two favorites Sidle girls."

Sara ended the call with a sigh of relief, dropping down beside Katie. "Sorry about that."

"Eh, no big deal." Katie shrugged, reaching for the Wheat Thins beside Sara. "So, was that a male friend I caught you talking to?"

"Male friend, yes."

"Is he a cute male friend?"

"Just to humor you, sure."

"Is he a dad-material friend?"

"Uh, more like a bug-infatuated male friend who is horribly wrong for me and was my former boss."

"Sorry I asked. That's just gross. Bug-infatuated, really?"

Sara nodded and Katie visibly shivered. "He was just calling me for an update on Greg."

"Ah." Katie looked like this was a conversation she was completely willing to have. She glanced over her shoulder towards their young two year olds, before turning back to Sara. She knew who Greg was of course. She had met Sara just shortly after she had moved down here, and over time had gained the woman's trust. One of the first big conversations the two women had was about Alicia's father and all that had occurred leading up to Sara leaving. But his name was hardly ever brought up and it slowly became something the two never talked about. But recently, Katie knew Sara was in contact with Grissom again regarding Greg and it hadn't been easy on her friend. "What did he have to say this time?"

Sara popped a few more Wheat Thins in her mouth, and washed it down with a swig of her tea. "I've been thinking about going home to visit him."

"Really?" Katie asked, shocked.

"Yeah. I guess Greg has begun to regain his memory and I really feel like this could be that moment I've been waiting for. To make him a part of Alicia's life; to have him back in mine." It was no secret that Sara had wanted Greg back but she had been gone for so long, so much had happened before and after she left, that Katie had never thought Sara would actually go through with bringing Greg back into her life; nonetheless Alicia's life.

Katie studied Sara for a moment, more precisely her forehead, because Sara refused to make eye contact. She just stared into her cup, swirling around the liquid inside, pouring the rest of her now cold tea down her throat seconds later. From what Katie could tell, the thought of Greg was exhausting her. Sara was never one for wearing her heart on her sleeve but today, Katie could see her friend's heart aching. "Did he break your heart that bad Sara Sidle?"

She shook her head, letting out a short laugh. Her eyes were tearing up, and she began wiping prematurely at the tears she knew were going to fall. Sara knew that across the table from her was one of the few people who was ever going to watch her cry, but right now she couldn't care. Sara kept shaking her head, trying to deny how upset Greg still made her after all of these years. But it was inevitable as tears trickled down from her face, the lump in her throat growing bigger, thicker, accompanied by the constant ache in her heart growing larger until finally, she gasped for air.

"Let it out Sara. C'mon honey, crying is ok. Just let it out."

And she did. Sara let go of her empty cup and dropped her head into her hands and began to sob. She could feel Katie watching her and didn't care for once. Sara cried harder and harder, gasping for air every couple seconds, shaking her head some more. "H-h-he..." she began, only to be cut off by her own hiccups.

"Shh Sara, you don't need to try and talk." Katie pushed herself up and out of her chair and rounded to Sara's side of the table. She wrapped her arms around Sara's trembling body, holding her close as she continued to sob. The crying turned into gut-wrenching sobs that made Katie's chest hurt. Sara was seconds away from wailing, her cries already rivaling both of their two-year olds' when they were exhausted and battling against nap time.

"H-h-he di-didn't b-br-break my he-heart," Sara managed, wiping away at the mascara streaks cascading down her cheeks. Above her hysterical cries though, Sara heard the sound of feet pattering across the kitchen floor. Sara fiercely wiped her face once more and pulled away from Katie's embrace, trying desperately to control her sobs.

Standing just a foot away was a little girl in her pajamas, gazing at the two women. Her left arm clutched a makeshift blanket of sorts; what was once an old t-shirt of Greg's had turned into comfort toy for the two-year-old. Her right thumb was snug in her mouth, pointer finger wrapped around the tip of her little nose. Alicia's brown eyes bore into Sara's thru her mess of sandy blonde bangs that hung in front of her watering eyes. Her head tilted to the right, watching her mother hastily compose herself at the kitchen table.

"H-hey sweetie pie," Sara cooed. She slid out of her chair to kneel before her daughter on the kitchen floor. "How are you? Are you hungry?"

Alicia just stared at Sara, still confused. "Momma, why are you sad?" she mumbled around her thumb.

Sara's eyes teared up again, but she just shook her head. "Momma is fine, honey."

Alicia didn't move. She continued to stare at Sara, finally taking her thumb from her mouth. In one swift movement, Alicia flung herself at her mom. She wrapped her arms around Sara's neck as far as she could. "I love you Momma. Don't be sad."

Of course, Sara's crying became renewed at her daughter's declaration, and was fortunately short lived. She explained to Alicia that she was crying because she was happy, which in turn made Alicia giggle all the way back into the family room and resume her position on her favorite cushion. She plopped down next to Jayden again, who didn't seem to have noticed she had even left her post beside him. He glanced at her casually from the corner of his eye before resuming his TV watching.

Sara viciously wiped her face once more, taking a deep breath and slowly breathing back out. It was a couple minutes before she looked at Katie again. "He didn't break my heart. I broke my own. I broke his heart." She shook her head, laughing in disbelief. "I...I can't believe I ever did that to another human being."

"You did what you thought was best Sara. You were looking out for your well-being, as well as Alicia. Hind sight is twenty-twenty for a reason Sara."

"I have to do this Katie. As much as it is going to suck, I have to do this. I have to make things right."

"Well..." Katie started, before realizing there really wasn't anything she was planning on saying. She just stared at her friend, wheels turning in her head but not really processing anything. "What can I do, if anything?"

Sara was quiet for a moment before turning to Katie with a grin. "Your husband works for United Airlines doesn't he?"