Title: The Life & Times of Sara Sidle

Rating: T

Summary: (You all know by now)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters!

A/N: Thank you guys for the reviews! Again, I'm sorry it took so long to put up a chapter. Stupid writer's block!

Living Room of Unknown House- 6:34 pm- January 12, 1990

When Sara awoke that morning for the second time, she was completely and utterly confused. Where was she? How did she get wherever it is that she was? What had happened? And what was causing the dizziness and nausea that she was experiencing at the moment? Actually, why couldn't she remember anything at all in the first place?

Sitting up, her mouth opened wide with a yawn and she covered her mouth slowly as she woke up. Looking around the room she was in, she saw two beds- one she had been lying on and another to the far corner of the room, which was messy and un-made. From looking around the room, she noticed pictures of her and her foster parents, Josh, the letter he had written her, and then around the rest of the room were old band posters. Now she knew where she was.

She was in her dorm room.

Now all she had to find out was how she got here and what had happened the night before that made her so oblivious to everything around her. Getting to her feet, she swayed slightly and caught herself as she began to fall against the wall near the bathroom. Catching herself again on the sink, she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked terrible, she realized, as she took in her full appearance.

Her hair was an absolute mess. Her face was so pale she looked as though she'd seen a ghost, and under her eyelids lay some of the darkest circles she had ever seen. Her lips were almost as pale in color as her face was.

Licking her dry lips, she turned to her left to see the toilet. The nausea that was in her stomach was starting to grow stronger and stronger, and finally she jerked herself forward onto her knees and collapsed in front of the toilet, emptying the contents of her stomach. Something seemed strangely familiar about this whole sequence, Sara realized when she finally finished. Had she done this earlier? Maybe she had...she didn't know at the moment, everything was just starting to come back to her, her mind was still a bit fuzzy...

Sara paused when she heard someone talking outside her dorm room. She knew that voice, it belonged to her roommate. She had certainly heard her voice enough to even be able to decipher it among a large group of people...

"See you guys later!" she could hear Cassie saying outside through the thin walls. "I'll talk to you guys later, I have to wake up my roommate," she told them as she searched for her key. After a few seconds of jumbling her keys around in her hands, Cassie found the correct key and slipped it inside the keyhole. When she turned it and the lock clicked, she walked inside only to discover her roommate no longer laying in bed. "Sara?" she asked, looking around.

"Right here.." Sara said quietly, still propping herself up by the wall, looking up at her as she breathed heavily from retching. Her roommate looked as though she had been up for a while- she was wearing jeans a t-shirt and had on a black knitted cap. In her mouth she held a candy bar still in its wrapping, and in her hand she had a can of soda.

"It's about time you woke up," Cassie told her with a small smile. "I was starting to get worried. I almost called the hospital or something."

Sara rolled her eyes. "Glad to know you were so concerned. I suppose that's why you left?" she said sarcastically.

Cassie just shrugged and walked over to her own bed, jumping on her knees and opening her soda. After taking a long sip, she set it on the window-sill by her bed and opened her candy bar, taking a big bite. "You were really out. You really surprised me last night, you know that?" she asked as she chewed the candy in her mouth.

Sara blinked. "What?" she asked. "Last night? What about last night?" she said, walking over to her bed and sitting down, looking over at Cassie.

"Oh, that's right, you don't remember," Cassie said with a wink.

"I...really don't," Sara admitted.

"Oh..." Cassie said. And then she realized how she could use this situation to her advantage. A small smile formed across her face, her lips curling in a grin as an idea popped into her mind. "So...you really want to know?" she asked her, taking another bite of her candy bar.

"Yes, just tell me," Sara said, almost desperately.

"You slept with one of the seniors. I'm surprised no one else told you, I almost had to pry you away with him when we finally came back to the campus," she said with a laugh.

Sara felt her blood run cold. No...that didn't sound like her. That didn't sound like her at all. It sounded more like Cassie, actually, but Sara? No way. She wasn't that careless, she wasn't that stupid...although the thing with Matthew had made her reconsider that...but that wasn't the point. That was then, this was now, and she wasn't that careless anymore, she was careful. Very careful.

"..What?" was all Sara could manage to get out. What if...she was telling the truth?

Cassie burst out laughing, Sara was surprised the soda she was taking a sip of actually didn't spurt out of her nose. The entire room filled with the girl's laughter, and Sara only stared in confusion. What was so funny?

"Nah, no, no, I'm totally kidding," Cassie said with a laugh. "Oh god, but the look on your face was priceless! Girl, you should've seen your face when I said that, that was absolutely hysterical!" she said, bursting into another laughing fit.

Sara just lowered her head. Anyone would've normally found that funny...it was just a joke, afterall...but to Sara...it wasn't funny. At all. For a minute there, she really thought she was serious, and if she had been...Sara would've felt like a complete idiot, having done something so careless...again.

"That's not funny," Sara whispered, her hand clenching into a small fist. "What really happened, Cassie?" she asked a bit firmly.

"You collapsed in the middle of the room," Cassie told her, shrugging. "But you did really surprise me. You should have seen how many bottles you had around you!" Cassie exclaimed. Walking over to her, she rose her soda to her lips. "You're quite the little boozer!" Cassie told her before taking another sip of her soda, patting Sara on the back.

Sara's eyes widened. She...had drinken so much that she had passed out? That would certainly explain the vomitting and the nausea that was still lingering in her stomach, as well as the dizziness and disorientation (and lack of memory from what had happened the night before, Sara realized), but...would she really do something like that? Talk about being careless.

Cassie noticed the surprised look on her face. "Hey- don't look at me like that. I didn't force you to do anything. I was the one who got you back here, mind you," she said. "Just lookin' out for you, Roomy!" she told her, ruffling her hair and walking out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Sara was left to stare blankly at the wall in front of her as Cassie walked off. Cassie had no idea what she was talking about...she didn't know Sara all that much, she didn't know what had happened to her in foster care, or what had happened with her parents for that matter. She didn't know why Sara acted the way she acted. No one did.

And...now that Sara thought about it, she was utterly ashamed of herself. Now she was no better than her parents, really...she turned to the bottle as a last result. She drank so much she collapsed. Just so she could forget. Just so she could forget about those in life who had hurt her most and what they had done to hurt her, even if it only was temporary...and she had promised herself that she was never going to be that careless again. That she was never going to become her parents. And this was basically one more step further down that road.

The more Sara thought about it, the more and more she felt ashamed of herself. Embarassed that someone had seen her like that...scared, vulnerable...desperate. She had been so scared the night before, she didn't want to break down and lose it in front of all those people...they would have thought something was wrong with her. That she was insane...though she was pretty sure she had crossed the line of sanity long ago.

As she felt the warm tears form in her eyes, Sara fell down on her bed and let them fall down her face. Her body racked with sobs as she started to cry. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly as she brought her knees up to her chest and curled into a tight little ball. Shaking herself back and forth, she just cried. She let it all out, she felt so alone...and now, again, she felt no better than her parents...

What would become of her? Would she go back to the bottle again? Would she just become a hopeless alcoholic working on the street as a hooker or something to get money for...more alcohol? Would that be what would happen to her? She thought she was going to come to Harvard for a reason...to enrichen her education so that she could one day persue a career as a CSI...and not come to Harvard just to end up going to a college party with the seniors and getting so drunk that she collapsed.

Now that Sara thought about it, maybe a life on the streets wouldn't be so bad. She could even work at a strip club...there had sure been enough people in her lifetime that had wanted to take advantage of her body, she was sure she would make enough money to live off in that field. What would her stripper name be, she wondered?

And then Sara started laughing. Softly at first, and then louder and louder. More tears ran down her cheeks as she continued to laugh. How could she even think of doing that? Then she would not only be no better than her parents, but no better than the strippers her father brought home for kicks when she was a child. It was sad, she thought, that she was even considering this. That she could actually picture herself taking her clothes off and watching as men threw their money away just so they could fantacize about being with her.

It was pathetic.

And Sara...wasn't pathetic.

She wasn't going to throw her life away.

Not today.

She was going to persue her dreams.

She was going to bring honor to her family name for once in the history of her family's life.

And she was not going to become her parents.

Sitting up, Sara wiped the tears away from her face and dried her eyes. Walking into the bathroom, she tried her best to not sway back and forth as she leaned over the sink and threw some water onto her face. She dried her face and then looked up at herself in the mirror. Today was a new day. And she was not going to make a stupid mistake like that again.

Walking out of the bathroom, she grabbed her bag that held her notebooks and textbooks for her classes, and slid her jacket onto her shoulders. Zipping it up and throwing her bag over her shoulder, she looked at herself in the mirror of the bathroom one last time.

She wasn't pathetic. She was going to graduate and become a CSI. A damn good CSI at that, and she was not going to throw her life away...not like her mother and father. She was better than that.

Turning the doorknob of her dorm room, she walked out and closed the door behind her. Walking off, with her hands in her pockets, she found a small smile forming across her face.

It was a new day.