Title: Dependent

Author: ScullyAsTrinity

Rating: PG-13

A/N: Bored at work study. This is based on the speculation over at YTDAW from the Canadian previews for this week's ep, that Sara's drinking again. Thanks in a large part to Lauren, who everyone is now to call Radish… because I said so. We're both going to go out and buy some good ole plastic undies for Thursday's eppie.

Shout out to Halls, she knows why. :grins like crazy:

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Every time she would do it, she would swear that it'd be the last time. She'd pick up a bottle and say to herself, 'Just this once, just, just this once. You're over this Sara Sidle.'

And then she'd raise the bottle to her lips and down it in long gulps, pretending that if it went down faster, then she wasn't consuming quite as much.

The drinking had started off fine. She'd gone through her PEAP sessions and finished them, acknowledging the fact that she didn't need to drink to cope. She could still have a beer with the guys and have it be just a beer. She could go home and fall asleep without needing a glass... or seven... of wine.

But as the weeks went on and she began keeping alcohol in her apartment once again... she couldn't help herself.

She'd catch Grissom gazing at her, leave after shift, go home and pound back three beers without even thinking what she was doing. Catherine, or Nick, or Warrick would say something that would get on her nerves and before she'd even taken off her coat she would be knocking something back, all the while berating herself for how weak she was.

On the outside, she was stone, granite, not easily weathered. Where it mattered, in her head, she was yearning for relief, for numbness. Numb was good, numb was blissfully unaware.

'You don't need this, you never have, it only makes you weaker.' The mantra would continue in her head, a litany of nonsensical words after six or seven shots. They'd stop repeating all together when her head would loll and she'd fall back onto her bed, desperately straining her eyes to stay awake... at least until she sobered up a bit.

The worst nights were when Grissom would touch her, inadvertently or on purpose. Synapses fired off in her head and her skin sang from the contact, and she'd stay like that all day, pulsating and humming from just a brush of skin. She didn't know how to stop it, so she dulled it with Jack Daniels or Jim Beam or a few Heinekens.

It didn't matter what it was as long as it brought about the desired effect.

But she was never an alcoholic. She didn't need a drink to get her going in the morning. She didn't need it to feel better about herself... it was just faster. Easier. A cheap and reliable coping mechanism.

'Makes you weaker, makes you weaker, makes you weaker...'

Going for days at a time without a sip was easy enough. Three days, then a particularly hanus fourth and she'd come home to pound a bottle into oblivion. But that was okay, because she wasn't doing it every day...that was okay.

She was a grown woman and she knew how to handle things; she was an intelligent woman, a secular woman, and she knew her limits. So it was okay.

It never interfered with work. She'd always make sure of that, so that was alright too. It wasn't interfering with her life, that she knew, so there didn't seem to be a problem. Sara was still a good person, a good employee, a good friend... who was just... dying inside.

Life carried on as it normally would and the empties piled up in her trash can before she got up enough courage to walk from her apartment to the dumpster with the refuse of her painkiller. She's start back at square one, with a clean slate.

She could start it all over, right then and there. Stop buying the stuff, stop drinking the stuff. It would be simple, just don't restock and she'd never have to fill the barrel with empties again, never have to feel the moment of shame when she dumped the garbage.

And life, life just trudged on as it normally would. And no one noticed that the circles under her eyes were just a little more pronounced, and nobody noticed that her skin was just a shade paler than it usually was.

And nobody ever told her to stop, but if they did... she would. So, it was okay.