A/N: A collection of Sara-centric short (longest 194 words, shortest 113 words) with titles from various songs. Some lightly implied GSR, but nothing much heavier than in the show. Spoilers for Nesting Dolls. Please give me constructive criticism.

Crash And Burn--1/4

She realized, almost as suddenly as she realized she was crying, that he was holding her hand. The rational, analytical part of her brain told her to let go, stand up, and quit making a goddamned fool out of herself. The other, smaller, impulsive side reminded her that this was the comfort she'd been craving all these years. She wanted to say something but she couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, she looked at a tiny nick in the paint at the base of the wall and cried harder.

After awhile (she wasn't sure how long it had been—perhaps hours, perhaps moments), her breathing returned to normal and he gently let go of her hand. He stood up and offered her help up, which she refused. If she held his hand again she'd not let go.

"Well," he said calmly. "I guess I'll be seeing you at work next week."

She pulled herself to standing and nodded. "I guess so." She showed him to the door, bid him goodbye, and watched him disappear out the window, shocked for some inexplicable reason that the sun was still residing brightly in the midday sky.

Blackbird--2/4

She regarded the large building with serious eyes, unsure of what to do. She had been waiting for years for this kind of anonymity and freedom, and now, here she was, terrified. There had been no one to see her off at the airport, nobody here now to help her unpack her things (not that there was much to unpack—the small suitcase that held everything she owned, plus the shoebox full of tapes), just herself. She took a deep breath and climbed the threshold to Harvard, to her brand-new life where she didn't have to be the girl whose mother had stabbed her father, feeling, for the first time in years, free.

This Is Not My Life--3/4

She walked down the long hallway, wishing not for the first time that she could just fall out of view and disappear forever. As long as she was living in Tamales Bay, that wasn't going to happen. The one truly bad thing that new schools brought was people who were unused to her. Even after six years, "Sidle" was a name deeply ingrained into people's minds, making Sara some kind of perverse celebrity. Infamous, she thought as she walked past a group of girls who proceeded to gather and whisper. Famous, if for all the wrong reasons.

Someday, though, she could get out of here. She was smart (or so people liked to tell her), and she could probably go to any university that she wanted to in a few years. She could tell herself that this was just a movie she was unwillingly in, that in a few years she could finally be something more than the girl whose mother had stabbed her father, and that alone was enough to get her through the day.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow--4/4

I really did think we were a normal family. I didn't have anything to compare us to, I guess. I was never scared of my dad; I thought all daddies hit all mommies. I thought it was okay to hit in anger. I didn't know any better until she killed him.

"I just couldn't take it!" she shrieked as the police took her away. "It just wasn't normal! No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get him to listen to me! She's just like him, I swear…You don't be like him, Sara Anne, you hear me!"

The social worker, the one whose name is long forgotten now, picked me up.

"You'll be okay," she told me gently. "Everything is just hunky dory, Sara."

I believed her. I was too young to know to do anything else.