Disclaimer: They're not mine... but I'll let CBS have them, because they want to keep Jorja! :)

A/N: These next two are short, not very eventful, and I have Chapter 25 ready, but 25 and 26 I just added, before they meet in 27... and I'm not done with 26, completely... and I want to post 27 on it's own... for obvious reasons. So, hopefully over the weekend I'll have some more interesting chapters up...

Thanks for the reviews, I love to read them!


Chapter 23: January 1994

Enough. Again.

I returned home to Vegas, and though I thought I had been devoted to the lab before this, I had been poorly disillusioned. I only took time off for seminars—I pulled doubles whenever it was even remotely necessary, I picked up shifts for others in my team and even on day shift, and I never called in sick. I was more devoted to my job than I'd ever been, because I didn't have anything else. So when I turned 37, I hadn't even realized it until the day was almost over.

Jim had been able to talk his guy at the FBI into granting me access to the account so that I could add money, or move it, if need be, under the condition that it be kept in Amber's name and that the money that was in it when they'd passed it into my control was never removed for any reason. I was more than happy to oblige, and, having even less of a life than I'd had before, put most of my paycheck into it for her. It was the only way I could be a father, right now, and so I gave as much as I could, even losing a little weight because groceries were thin the last few days before payday, but I didn't want to have any less for her that month.

It wasn't like I wasn't eating—I was just skipping a meal and a half, two days at a time, every two weeks. Not so bad.

It was what I had to do, to keep myself going, and truth be told, it was good for the lab, even if it wasn't necessarily good for me. We had been in the top 50 labs in the country this past year, and we were only improving. And for maybe the thousandth time in my life, I repeated the mantra to myself—enough. I had enough in my life to keep me going, keep me sane, keep me alive. Enough. Just enough.


Berkeley

I was a different person, at Berkeley, than I had been in Boston. I became… more of a split, between Tomales Bay Sara and Boston Sara. I went back to being a pseudo-extrovert, flirting and looking tough as a defense mechanism, but I was still my quiet, reserved self when I wasn't around people I didn't know.

That was rare, however. I didn't let anyone get close to me. I couldn't. I was scared.

At the very least, I was now close enough to do holidays with Jim and Marlene. They had seemed extremely excited by my renewed proximity, which reassured me… made me feel good. Maybe they would have kept me, all the time… wanted me. Maybe.

I found forensics to be the single most intriguing and fulfilling thing I'd ever been a part of in my whole life. It was science applied—the most complicated and multi-faceted puzzle, where logic always mattered more than anything else. It allowed me an escape, and I devoured my textbooks like they were oxygen. I subscribed to forensics magazines, I bought a police scanner, I did supplementary research in my spare time.

I had decided to keep up with getting my masters in psychics, which I thought was a smart idea, even if I now felt like the classes I had loved were boring and lifeless in comparison to my forensics classes.

And that was when I realized that I could be happy with just a career.

I had always wanted one, of course… I'd wanted to support myself, and have my own dreams… but those dreams had always included someone tall, dark, and wonderful… Now I knew, I could marry my job, and be content.