Notes: Wrote this after last week's episode and posted it on Tumblr, forgot to put it here until now. Insert standard disclaimer here and enjoy.
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"She tried to help me. Irene," he continued to flip through the police report he was reading, hardly bothering to notice if she was listening to him or not. "I would come home high, she would put me to bed like she was my mum and I just had the flu and when I woke up in the morning, shaking and sick from withdrawals, she would shoot me up and just hold me until the shakes stopped. She was the closest thing I had to a friend in those days."
He stopped talking while he stared at the report, not even reading it anymore while his memories of the past came painfully to the surface. She lowered her book, turned her head to look at him and found herself wondering if he even knew she was there anymore. "I overdosed myself one night, and she was there to put me to bed just like she always did. Woke up in the hospital, I'd stopped breathing in the night and she'd panicked apparently. She told me I had to go to bloody rehab, and I hated her for it.
"I was there 10 days before I checked myself out, and it was just like nothing had changed, she still acted like she was my mum and I just needed a little more babying." He finally gave up on his illusion that he was still reading the report and put it aside. "After a while she got fed up with me and threw me out of her flat, told me I wasn't welcome any longer unless I could clean up. I tried to – not for me, of course, but for her, all because she wanted me to."
She watched him stare at the wall now, kept quiet while he continued to reminisce. "She wrote to me every few days, made me promise I wouldn't read them until I was clean, and I didn't. Then she fell ill. They let me visit her right at the end, and for her funeral. My supplier was there, he got me high and I checked myself out of rehab, stayed with him for nearly a year. Then I overdosed again, and all he did was drop me in the hall with my mobile and tell me I was welcome back when I could walk back in.
"I don't remember being taken back to the hospital, but someone must have dragged me there since that's the next thing I remember, waking up there again. They said I'd been delirious, talking to her like she was there playing mum again. Dad shipped me off here after that," he finally glanced over at her. "He told you the rest of it, I'm sure."
"He did." She left out the part about how he'd seemed delighted to talk about his wreck of a son, he didn't seem like he was in the kind of mood that wanted to hear that. "I'm making some tea. Would you like some?"
"No. Thank you Watson, but I think I'd rather retire for the night." He left the report sitting on the table and started towards the stairs, though he stopped just around the corner from the sitting room door. She got up to go make her tea, nearly jumping out of her skin when he spoke again. "You remind me so much of her sometimes – bit less motherly about it perhaps, but the thought's the same. You would have liked her."
And with that he disappeared up the stairs, leaving her to stare after him like she'd just been introduced to a stranger.