I was going to open the door when I noticed that my hands were shaking like a leaf. As I tried to steady them, I also realized that my legs were also pretty shaky. "Get it together Sarah! This isn't the first time you've been to a party, There's nothing to be nervous about," I told myself; I stared at the door for 2 minutes straight. I could hear the beat of the music and lots of laughter inside. "I don't know if I should do this. What if our Commanders see us? What would they say and how badly would we all be punished? Stop it! Don't think about the negative things, think about the positive. Positive as in.... I can try to meet someone new who could replace Peter. That would be nice," I sighed. "Ok, here I go." I opened the door to find a party that was huge, loud, and as decorated as prom. I looked around at everything until I spotted the soda bar all the way in the back. "Great, with my luck, I'll never make it over there," I thought, "Better get a move on it while I've still got a chance." Think again. As I slowly started to walk to the back of the room, people were noticing me, staring, pointing, and whispering. I tried to act like nothing was wrong but several thoughts made me wonder, "Do I have toilet paper on my shoe? Is my makeup smeared? What if my hair didn't stay all on one side like it was supposed to!" I quickly glanced around for a friendly face but saw none. Instead, I recognized several Commandos from our side of the base and a few from higher offices as well. "Guess I don't have to worry about getting caught," I thought as I started walking faster and was soon stopped by Max.

"Do I know you?" he asked. I held back a smile and shrugged. "I know I've seen you before; Hold on a minute..." Max said as he tried to figure it out. "Sarah?" he asked.

"I'm surprised you even recognized me with all this makeup," I confirmed.

"Shut up! It is  you! What did they do to you?" Max asked worried; I laughed.

"Nothing really, just a little makeover. This is a prime example of what girls like to do," I pointed out.

"Oh, well, um, Katie and the girls did a good job," Max said awkwardly.

"You should go find Katie then and see what she looks like," I suggested.

"You should go find someone to," Max shot back.

I nervously headed to the back for some soda and heard laughter from the corner on my way. There were 3 Commandos sitting at a table having a good time. It was obvious that they had one too many bottles of soda. As I got closer, I realized that the 3 Commandos were Commander Howlett, his friend Mike, and someone else; However, Mike saw me and elbowed Commander Howlett. I acted like I hadn't seen them and asked the man at the soda bar for a bottle of Orange Crush. I looked back over to see Commander Howlett staring at me. Our eyes locked, he got up, and made his way over to me. "Hey Commander," I said.

"Hey Sarah, where did you go earlier?" he asked as he took a drink from his bottle.

"That's odd; he called me by my first name," I thought, but decided to roll with it. "I went over to Katie's quarters. She kind of offered makeovers to all the girls," I answered. The man at the soda bar handed me my bottle of Orange Crush. As I said thank you and gulped some down, Howlett looked me over from head to toe and back again. "What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?"

"What?" Howlett asked.

"The announcement? The changes? What are your thoughts about the whole thing?" I asked.

"I'm not entirely sure yet, but I know my thoughts about one thing are for sure," he smirked.

"Oh yeah? What might that be?" I immediately regretted asking the question because I was afraid of what he might say. He took a big drink before replying,

"I know for sure that my thoughts about you are true when I say that I think you look really, really  hot right now." I was blushing and couldn't control it!

"Commander, you do know that your drunk, right?" I pointed out.

"You mean I've had too much of this?" Howlett asked holding up his bottle. I slowly nodded. "Ha! Hey boys," he called to Mike and his other friend, "Sarah here thinks we've had too much!" They all bursted out laughing and drank more of their soda just to see my reaction. To their disappointment, I stayed perfectly calm. "Sarah, have you ever been drunk?" Commander Howlett asked. I took another drink and gave him that "really?" look.

"What do you think?" I asked. My Commander only grinned.

"Well in that case..." he started, "Soda man, get this girl three more bottles of whatever the heck she's drinking right now." The "soda man" nodded and slid the bottles across the counter to me.

"What are you doing?" I asked playfully. He grabbed the bottles and guided me to the table in the corner. I smiled mischievously as I realized that Commander Howlett was trying to get me drunk. This made him grin and when Mike and the other guy figured it out, they all grinned to. Pretty soon, I was smiling, laughing, drinking, sharing jokes, and decided that my Commander was definitely a cool dude.

Hours later, Alice found me. "There you are! I've been looking for you all night!" Alice exclaimed.

"Oh have you now?" I said sarcastically, which resulted in an uproar of laughter from the guys.

"Why are you hiding out in the corner with a bunch of Commandos?" Alice asked angrily.

"Because we're awesome and a lot more fun than you?" the mystery man said. I choked on my soda that was followed by a chorus of "oooh" and a very angry looking Alice.

"Sarah, I think we should leave," Alice said firmly.

"Leave? But she just got here!" Commander Howlett complained.

"Yeah, and your friend is tons of fun," Mike added.

"Hmm, looks like you're going to have to say goodbye," Alice barked as she looked at me and nodded to the door.

"I've gotta take care of my angry friend here, but I'll see you guys later," I giggled as I waved.

"We sure will see you later Sarah. Oh, and tell your angry friend no hard feelings!" Commander Howlett called as they all laughed and drank some more.

Alice lead to me to the door, which was quite the adventure for her. People were saying hi to me and giving me compliments right and left. Me, being the kind of person I am, made sure to say hi back and thank you. I was also chugging down my 5th bottle of Orange Crush. Once we were out the door, Alice looked at me square in the eye. "Sarah, I don't know who you think you are to let a bunch of Commandos treat me like that! I thought you would've at least tried  to stop them," she fumed. I took another drink.

"Oh Alice, how can you be so blind? We were only trying to have some fun," I explained.

"Fun? YOU CALL THAT FUN? THEY WERE DOWN RIGHT RUDE TO ME AND ALL YOU DID WAS LAUGH AT THEM!" Alice yelled. I drank a bit more of my soda.

"I think you're overreacting. Maybe you're jealous that I actually hung out with someone besides you for once?"

"Sarah, what did they do to you?" Alice asked concerned.

"I'm sorry, who?" I asked as I waved my bottle around.

"The Commandos at your table? I think that they gave you this, this....THIS CARELESS ATTITUDE!"

"Calm down, we were only flirting, laughing, sharing jokes, and we had a lot of soda," I explained. Alice suddenly pieced everything together and with a look of horror, she asked,

"How many bottles of soda have you had tonight?" I shrugged and giggled.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe 6 or 7? Honestly, I can't remember, but the whole thing was Commander Howlett's idea, I swear! He was already drunk when he, um, you know, said some things he wouldn't have said if he weren't drunk." I started chugging down the last of my soda when Alice took it away from me.

"Hey! Give it back! I wasn't done with it yet!" I whined as I tried to wipe the spilled soda off my face.

"If you want it, you'll have to follow me to get it back," Alice bargained.

"Ok," I said happily as I followed her back into the party.

"We need to find Katie and Max so they can help me get you back to your room safely. Do you..." Alice said as she turned in my direction. I had taken off the second she turned her back on me. On my way, I had grabbed 2 more bottles of Orange Crush.