Noise surrounded Sherlock, seemingly coming from the end of a distant tunnel. He opened his eyes to pinpoint its source, but what he saw made no sense. Bright light flashed in prisms before his eyes. A few objects were in view, but their edges were indistinct in the glare. A memory pushed insistently at his brain then swam away. Whatever it was, it was important, but he couldn't quite focus his thoughts. His eyes drifted closed.

A voice to his right suddenly pierced the fog.

"Sir, don't move," it commanded. "We are working to get you out. You will hear our equipment close at hand, but please remain still."

Sherlock was jolted by the words, which made less sense than what he'd seen seconds before. Get him out? Based on the feeling of a breeze across his face, he was already outside. But where, exactly?

He tried to shift, but couldn't move against a pressing weight across his chest. Forcing his eyes open, he looked down. Seatbelt, strapped across him. Airbag hanging limply from a steering wheel. Car accident then, apparently with him in the driver's seat. Curiously, he couldn't remember being in a car, much less driving one. The alarm which would ordinarily accompany the discovery that one was in a mangled vehicle didn't surface. For all Sherlock reacted, he might have been at home sitting before the fire.

"Shock," he thought. He was satisfied at having deduced his situation, although the conclusion didn't quite seem right somehow. There was something else…

The first flicker of unease rose in him. He'd been in shock before. In fact, he'd beaten it back once. He'd done it after being shot, gaining precious additional seconds of clarity to devote to survival. Sherlock knew what shock felt like, and this wasn't it, not entirely.

Turning his head slightly, a sight greeted him which froze his blood. A nappy bag was wedged between the passenger seat and the crushed dashboard. There was only one explanation…Amanda Watson was in the car with him.

Suddenly, the sensation he was experiencing became clear. He was in shock, but that wasn't all.

He was high. With John and Mary's child in the car. A car he'd obviously piloted off the road.

Sherlock screamed.

Beeping monitors was the next sound to penetrate Sherlock's mind. This time, though, there wasn't a comforting fog to protect him from his thoughts. The memory of having woken previously to a crushed car and a nappy bag surfaced immediately. Eyes snapping open to what was clearly a hospital room, he began to thrash. Amanda, he had to get to her…

"Sherlock!"

He turned in the direction of the voice but didn't trust the evidence of his eyes. John was standing next to him, in a place he never would have been had Sherlock harmed his child.

"..mand…", croaked Sherlock.

"Calm down," John soothed. "You're fine, or will be."

"No, John, so sorry…" Sherlock was acutely aware of babbling, but didn't care.

"You should be, you bastard," John responded, tone becoming curt. "This isn't the time, but we will be having a discussion soon. And you will be getting help. You could have died and could have taken someone with you."

"Yes," agreed Sherlock, now frantic with worry. "Where is Amanda? John, where is she?"

"Amanda?" asked John.

"Yes…oh, God, I don't remember, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…" Sherlock panted.

"Amanda wasn't in the car with you, Sherlock. No one was in it but you." A pause followed as John followed Sherlock's thought process. "Wait, you thought she was there? My daughter, in a car YOU were driving while high?" John's voice rose an octave. "Christ, Sherlock. Not even you could be so callous."

"But, the nappy bag…." Sherlock sputtered.

"Was left in the car when you dropped me off. Mary nearly had my head-first, letting you take our car to go who knows where, then leaving the bag. She was livid."

Sherlock closed his eyes. His head pounded as he tried in vain to remember. Dropping John at his house seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't envision it. Had John taken Amanda? He must have done since the bag was in the car but she wasn't…a sob of relief broke from him before he could push it down.

"Well, I hope you've learned a lesson, brother mine," came a silky voice from the other side of the bed. Sherlock snapped his head around, then immediately regretted the move. Pain shot across his shoulder, up his neck and around his forehead. Only a monumental effort kept him from groaning. A cast on his arm made itself known when Sherlock tried to lever himself away and failed.

"Bugger off, Mycroft," Sherlock growled. His tone was breathy, revealing weakness he'd never intended his brother to hear.

"Mycroft, I agree with you, but now isn't the time to get into this," began John.

"I disagree, Doctor," snapped Mycroft. He leaned over Sherlock in bed, using his relative health and height to intimidate. "Now is exactly the time to address this. Until a few seconds ago, Sherlock, you thought that you had crashed a car with the Watson child in it while driving under the influence. It is glaringly obvious that you believed yourself capable of such gross negligence."

Sherlock took the only defense against Mycroft's assault available to him in a hospital bed. He closed his eyes. It was a mistake—the image of the nappy bag resting beside him in the Watson's destroyed car burned across his eyelids.

"Even you, Sherlock, would never ordinarily do such a thing. You have spent your life telling the ridiculous fable that you're a sociopath, when you are clearly not. You love the Watsons, including their child. In your right mind, you would be less likely to put her life in danger than to give up your own. But in your current state of mind, that is exactly what you could have done."

Mycroft grabbed Sherlock's bandaged wrist and turned it slightly, eliciting the moan that Sherlock had earlier suppressed.

"You are an addict, Sherlock. You took a cocktail of drugs—yes, I have your list—and climbed behind the wheel of a car. You put your life and the lives of everyone on that road at risk."

Sherlock opened his mouth and Mycroft twisted his wrist again.

"Oi!" cried John. His fingers closed into a fist, but he didn't intervene. Mycroft wasn't causing Sherlock any permanent damage. More to the point, he had his attention. Sherlock was furious, but he was listening, something he hadn't really done on this topic of conversation for a very long time.

"Yes, I know," Mycroft sneered. "It was for a case." He let go of Sherlock's wrist and stepped back. Against his will, Sherlock's gaze followed his brother.

"You can tell yourself that all you'd like. But while you're at it, think about this as well." Mycroft's tone softened, which only served to increase the menace it conveyed.

"If what you thought had happened on that road really had, your next stop after this hospital bed would be a funeral home. One with a very small coffin. Think of that the next time you decide that 'it's only for a case'."

Sherlock shuddered and snuck an involuntary look toward John. It was apparent that he too was imagining a darkened room from which his daughter would never emerge.

"John," Sherlock said pleadingly. John shook his head in response, refusing to meet Sherlock's eyes.

"Get help, Sherlock," said John flatly. "Mary and I will do whatever we can for you, but you have to want to get past this, this…" John waved his hand over Sherlock. The word "drugs" went unspoken, but hung in the air.

"No more chances, Sherlock," said Mycroft quietly. "You've used them all up."

He and John moved toward the door. Sherlock said nothing, choosing instead to focus on the sheet covering him. He heard the door to his room swish open, the close with a click, but the sound was replaced in Sherlock's mind with the crunching and groaning of battered metal.

Unseeing, his mind played a vision on a loop. First, the approaching guardrail, then the shattering windshield. The steering wheel's airbag exploding toward him as his seatbelt deployed, slamming him back against his seat. Glass tinkling around him, turning his head to look over his shoulder. Instead of an empty backseat, horror rises as he's greeted by the sight of a very empty car seat, straps dangling over a stain of blood.

With a gasp, Sherlock shot up straight in bed, his aching arm a distant memory.

"Okay," he said to the closed door of his room. "Okay. I'll do it." The footsteps of Mycroft and John echoed down the hallway. Sherlock stared after them for a very long time before finally falling into a sleep which was, at last, deep and calm.