A/N: Thank you all so much for reading the story and your wonderful feedback. Your great reviews have really put a smile on my face. I'm so glad you guys are enjoying Problem Girl! In addition I apologize for not updating sooner, what with the holidays I got maybe just a wee bit distracted :D I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter!

"B-But Mom, Sara said--"

"Now!" Lilly shouted. She wasn't going to leave room for argument when there was a teenager lying on her daughter's bed bleeding and barely conscious.

Catherine ran into the living room and picked up the phone, dialing in 9-1-1 with shaky hands. She anxiously shifted from foot to foot as she waited for the operator to pick up. Every second it took for the operator to answer the call was another second Sara's life was in danger.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"We need an ambulance!" Catherine frantically told the woman on the other line, "We're over on West Broadway, number 177. Please, you have to hurry, my girlfriend is bleeding!"

"The ambulance is on their way. Do you know if she's conscious?"

"No I don't fucking know if she's conscious!" Catherine practically shouted at the woman, almost hysterical. "She's bleeding all over the place and she's got bruises around her legs! Just hurry up!" Without saying another word Catherine slammed the phone back down on the receiver and bolted back down the hallway toward her bedroom, rushing back over to Sara's bedside. "Sara? Sara baby are you awake?"

Lilly and Catherine both watched Sara for any signs of life, any signs of movement, both forgetting to breathe for a minute until she managed to open her eyes just a little. "...Cat..."

Catherine choked back the sob rising in her throat, trying to smile for Sara's sake. She had seen Sara injured before, but this was just too much for her to handle. "Yeah Sar, it's me. You're going to be okay, I promise, the ambulance is on their way. Can you just stay awake?"

"Cath..." Sara whispered, fighting back the shiver that was threatening to make her body tremble and the tears that were forming in her eyes, "I'm so sorry..."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Catherine firmly told her, wrapping a layer of blankets around her body and trying to ignore the puddle of blood that was still steadily flowing around the middle of the mattress. Sara looked pale as a ghost. "Did you hear me? You didn't do anything wrong, Sara..."

"I'm scared, Cath," Sara told her, her voice on the verge of breaking. Here she was, Sara Sidle admitting she was scared for perhaps the first time in her life. "I'm so cold..."

"I know, Sara," Catherine whispered, "But you're going to be just fine, and I know you're scared, but, everything's going to be just fine," Catherine informed her, trying to put on her fake brave facade. Sara didn't need to know just how terrified she was. "When this is over, you're going to come back home with us, and I'll wait on you hand and foot. Would you like that, Sar-Bear?"

"Don't call me that," Sara tried to smirk through her tears as she fought to stay conscious. "You're embarrassing me..."

Catherine tried to laugh as best she could, wiping at her eyes. "It's you and me forever, babe. Got that? So don't you even think of going anywhere." When Sara didn't reply, she tried again, "Sara? Did you hear me? You stay with me, alright?" Her eyes widened when Sara's began to droop, "N-No, Sara, you have to keep your eyes open for me right now. You can't sleep just yet." But Sara didn't respond. "Sara!" she fiercely told her, trying to shake her awake, "Sara, answer me! Damn it, don't do this to me!"

"The paramedics are here, I'm going to go let them in," Lilly told Catherine, dashing out of the room to get the front door.

"Please, Sara," Catherine whispered, not even hearing her mother, "We're supposed to die together, remember? You can't leave me just yet..." she told her unconscious form, wiping away the sweat that had began to accumulate on her forehead above her brow. "Please..."

"She's in there!" came Lilly's voice from the hallway as she directed the EMTs to Catherine's bedroom. "I think she's unconscious!"

---

The ride to the hospital was complete chaos. Catherine insisted to her mother that she ride with Sara in the ambulance to the hospital despite her protests and after that everything had just become a blur of flashing red lights and IV drips and beeping sounds and the voices of the EMTs. She couldn't hear or understand most of what was being said, so she simply sat at Sara's side with her hand in hers.

"I need O2, about three liters," one of the EMTs ordered as they placed an oxygen mask over Sara's face.

"BP low, multiple abrasions and contusions--"

"Large amount of blood has accumulated around her pelvic region, doesn't seem to be clotting--"

"I was never very good at medical terminology, was I?" Catherine quietly asked the sleeping Sara, wiping at the tears in her eyes before they could fall. "I guess I should've borrowed that textbook from you when you got it from the library..." Her only reply was the small shallow breaths Sara was taking and the sounds of the machines and the EMTs. "Everything's going to be okay, I promise..."

In a matter of a few minutes the ambulance had arrived at the hospital and before Catherine could even comprehend what was happening the EMTs had pulled Sara's stretcher out of the ambulance and were rushing her inside to the ER. She tried to follow them through the double doors but Lilly stopped her, grabbing her around the waist before she could go.

"Mom what are you doing?" Catherine asked in outrage, trying to kick against her mother's strong grip. But despite her best efforts, she was still in shock and was losing strength altogether. "I need to be there with her!"

"Catherine, you can't go back there with her," Lilly told her, continuing to hold her daughter back from the doors. "Let them take her now. They'll take care of her."

"You don't understand!" Catherine shouted, still kicking and fighting and anything else she could think of to make her mother let go of her, "I have to be back there with her! I can't leave her alone!"

"Catherine, she's not going to be alone, sweetheart," Lilly tried to tell her, "The doctors are working on her right now."

"But I have to protect her!" Catherine insisted, "I wasn't there when she needed me, and now--" Her voice began to break under the pressure of keeping her emotions under control, "And... and now..." Turning around she threw herself into her mother's arms and began to sob. "If only I had been there with her, she wouldn't... she wouldn't be..."

"Shh," Lilly whispered, gently stoking her daughter's back with her hand, "Shh... it's okay..."

"I could've helped her," Catherine whispered against Lilly's chest, "Why didn't she say something?"

"I don't know, Catherine," Lilly whispered, "I just don't know..." After a few moments of whispered sweet nothings into Catherine's ear Lilly spoke up. "How about we go into the waiting room?" she asked. "It's getting cold out here, and we can't be of any help to Sara from out here."

Catherine wiped her tears away with her shirt sleeve, shooting her mother a small appreciative smile. "Okay."

---

Three hours of sitting as patiently as she could in the waiting room had driven Catherine nuts. They at least expected an update soon but no one had come out to give them any details yet. Just the fact that they were having to wait as long for news was worrying Catherine even more about Sara. Three hours with no news had to mean it was bad... very bad.

But Catherine knew what happened. There was just that little sliver of hope left that was poking at the back of her mind telling her that maybe it was just a bad dream, or... maybe Sara had just started her period early and was having a bad case of cramps. Sara never did handle cramps very well, tough as she was. She used to drink just enough of the whiskey in her house to take the pain away until Catherine scolded her and told her not to.

"Some girlfriend you are," she grumbled. "It hurts like a bitch."

"Oh stop it," Catherine rolled her eyes as she set the whiskey bottle back in its place. "What is this, 1860? We have aspirin for these things now, you don't have to be sneaking whiskey behind my back for "medicinal" puposes."

"Roger that, Doctor Willows."

Catherine laughed before she could stop herself. Many of the other people sitting in the waiting room, some cradling broken arms, some reading the old magazines lying around turned and stared at her like she was crazy and it instantly shut her up.

"Something funny?" Lilly asked with a small smile.

Catherine cleared her throat, shaking her head. "No, nothing. I'm just tired." And then after the awkwardness had subsided, "Where the hell are the doctors? Why aren't they giving us any news?"

"I don't know," Lilly told her. "I haven't seen anyone since they took Sara back there. I'm sure they'll give us any news when they know something though."

"Yeah," Catherine sighed in defeat, staring down at the white linoleum floor. They better or I'll go back there myself for answers.

"So..." Lilly started, interrupting Catherine from her thoughts of vengeance on the doctors. "You still haven't told me what happened," she said. "What were you two doing in your room anyways?"

"Uh..." Catherine hesitated. She had been hoping her mother had forgotten that little detail. Even if she was her mother, she most certainly did not feel comfortable disclosing the details of her love life. "We were just, uh..." Shit, what do I say? Studying? Damn it, that kind of sounds like a kinky sort of form of sex. "Studying..." Oh hell...

Lilly shot her a knowing, almost cocky smile. "You don't have to go into the details of your... studying. I get what you're trying to say."

Catherine let out a sigh of relief. As embarrassing as it was at least she didn't actually have to say the words.

"I know what it's like," Lilly mused. "Someone comes along when you need them most and asks nothing in return... only that you love them as much as they love you. I remember when your father and I first met at the opening of the Rampart, and god was he a sight for sore eyes."

Catherine tried not to curl her lip in distaste. "No offense Mom, but... I really don't need the details of how you and dad came to bring me into this world."

Lilly chuckled. "I suppose not. But one day you're going to be just like we were, happy, committed to eachother..."

"...Mom..." Catherine started. "About that... I... wouldn't want to do something that you disapprove of, but... I love her. Sara's so... different, a lot different than any of my boyfriends I've had in the past. She's funny, and sweet, and tough as nails... she always knows what to say, and she's always there for me." She smiled at the long list of Sara's traits. "She gets the best marks in the school despite her delinquency which is sexy as hell, and those boobs--" Catherine forgot who she was talking to and quickly cleared her throat and set her hands back down at her side. "What I'm trying to say, is that she just..."

"Swept you off your feet," Lilly finished for her.

"...Yeah," Catherine shot her a small smile. "Exactly."

"Catherine, let me tell you something," Lilly said, turning so that she was facingher daughter. "I could care less who it is that you fall in love with so long as they treat you right and love you back. Now whether that turns out to be a man or a--"

"It's Sara," Catherine interrupted her. "I'm in love with Sara."

"Well Sara fits that bill," Lilly told her. "She's been nothing but polite with me, and you both seem quite fond of eachother. I've grown to like her more, she's almost like a second daughter to me now."

"Really?" Catherine asked, a smile prickling at the corners of her mouth. "So... you're okay with it?"

"Far as I can see, there's nothing wrong with two people being in love," Lilly smiled. "Just don't forget to call me first when you two get engaged."

Catherine leapt across the bench they had been sitting on and squeezed her mother in a tight hug, trying not to cause too much of a scene but ecstatic at the same time. "Thank you, Mom," she managed to tell her.

"Don't thank me, honey," Lilly replied, shooting her daughter a smile as big as hers. "We should be thanking Sara."

"That's true," Catherine told her. "Speaking of which, it's been... what, three and a half hours now? And they still haven't come out with any updates?"

"You could go ask the receptionist if the doctor has come by," Lilly suggested. "She'd know more than we do."

"Right," Catherine nodded, getting to her feet. "I'll be right back." Just as she was turning to walk over to the receptionist's desk the door leading to the emergency room opened and a man, presumably a doctor walked out into the waiting room donning green scrubs and holding a clipboard in his hands.

"Sara Sidle?" he asked, looking around the room.

"Here," Catherine spoke up, "We came with her."

"Lilly Willows," Lilly spoke up, getting to her feet to greet the doctor. "This is my daughter Catherine."

"Oh, good," the man replied. "I'm Dr. Woods, I worked on Sara."

"How is she?" Catherine chimed in. "We've been sitting in here for almost four hours now and we haven't got any updates."

"I'm sorry about that, but we've been awfully busy tonight," Dr. Woods replied, fixing his glasses on his nose. "But Sara is currently stable. She should be fine."

"Oh thank god," Lilly sighed, patting Catherine's shoulder. "Do you know what caused the bleeding?"

Dr. Woods looked around the waiting room at the various people sitting and staring at the three and then back at the anxious faces of Catherine and Lilly. "Let's go into my office," he suggested. "We can have more privacy there." He led them through the door leading into the hallway of the emergency room and as they passed each door Catherine looked for any signs of Sara but did not see her.

"Where's Sara?" Catherine asked as they walked into the doctor's office.

"She's been moved downstairs," Dr. Woods told her, closing the door as he headed back over to his desk. "She was stable, so we moved her so she could have her own room."

"Good," Catherine nodded, sitting down across from him. Lilly sat in the chair beside her. "So what's going on? What happened?"

"When Sara was brought in, she was a mess," Dr. Woods told them both. "She was bleeding from her pelvic region and it wasn't showing any signs of stopping. We brought in a SART nurse, standard procedure for these sorts of incidents. When we finally got the bleeding to stop, we had the SART nurse perform an SAE kit."

"W-Wait a minute, what's that?" Catherine asked, swallowing her nerves.

"It's a sexual assault exam kit," Dr. Woods replied. Lilly's face grew impossibly paler. "The nurse said she found signs of recent severe trauma, indicating that Sara was assaulted recently. But that wasn't all-- according to our nurse, judging by the amount and age of the scarring of the tissue, beside that of what we found tonight... Sara has been assaulted before, perhaps several times."

"What?" Lilly whispered in disbelief. "You... surely you've made some sort of mistake..."

"It's not a mistake, Mom," Catherine whispered, "He's right."

"That looks like a nasty bruise," Catherine mused, staring at Sara's leg that was bouncing up and down on the floor as she sat at the couch doing her homework.

"Yeah, it does, huh?" Sara asked, not looking up from her work. "Jammed the kickstand on my back and it retaliated."

Sara didn't even have a bike.

"Ooh," Catherine winced at the dark mark on Sara's wrist as she watched her eat her sandwich. "How'd that happen? That has to hurt."

"Yeah, I was wrapping my wrists for the punching bag and I hit the bag at a weird angle and twisted it," Sara replied. "Hurts like hell."

"I bet. Sure it's not broken?"

"Positive."

Sara was too familiar with a punching bag to do something that careless.

"Do you have any idea who could've done this?" Dr. Woods asked Catherine and Lilly. "There's a good chance whoever assaulted Sara the first time is the person who has been doing it all along."

"Yeah," Catherine nodded, wiping at her eyes. "Her father."

TBC