A/N: I'm gonna screw this up if I keep updating this fast.

Already Broken: I'm hoping I didn't actually offend you XD Yeah this fic is different from what I usually do and I'm hoping all the twists I planned work as intended(judging by your reaction they have so far), and I also hope you enjoy the ride. (That didn't sound sexual nope wat)

Also the medical/legal stuff in this chapter is probably totally off, I'm sorry.

They went to the police. There wasn't anything else they could do. Dan was legally dead. But he wasn't actually. So...police.

And so began the nightmare. At first no one wanted to talk to them, dismissing them as jokers. But then someone recognized the name 'Daniel Howell' from the obituaries way back. That was when they met Officer Warren. The first question he'd asked had been whether or not Dan knew it was against federal law to fake one's own death.

"I didn't- I don't- no?" The man didn't look convinced. He turned to address the other YouTubers.

"And the two of you knew Mr. Howell?"

"Yes sir." PJ answered. "We were close." Phil just nodded. The cop gestured to Dan.

"And you're convinced this is the same man?"

"Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but-"

"Mr. Ligori, was there a funeral for Mr. Howell?"

"Yes sir."

"So you saw the body then."

"No sir. There, uh...there was no body." The man turned to Dan, sizing him up.

"Then it's entirely possible. If you'll excuse me a moment." He left them in his office, a suffocating silence falling over the three. Dan stood up and began pacing.

"That's just great, first I'm supposed to be dead and now I could go to prison," he muttered. PJ opened his mouth, perhaps to offer a consoling thought, but changed his mind. What could he say? That this was just a misunderstanding, and that they would all go home and forget about it? Not likely.

"You don't remember anything? At all?" he asked instead. Dan shook his head.

"Nothing. The last thing I remember is going to get milk from the shop. And then waking up in a fucking alley."

"But not how you got there."

"No." Dan swallowed hard, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking. He was missing three years of memories. How could someone forget that much of their life? He still remembered who he was, and his life from before he...jumped. But obviously he was missing pieces from that as well, because why the hell would he want to die?

The door opened again, and Officer Warren reappeared. He nodded at the chair Dan had vacated.

"Mr. Howell, if you would take a seat, there are some questions I'd like to ask you." Dan glanced at his friends.

"Can they stay?" The officer shrugged.

"For now." Dan sat down. "Mr. Howell, what do you remember about the night you killed yourself?"

"Nothing. I don't remember it at all."

"Have you ever struggled with depression?"

"Uh, no. I mean, not clinical depression."

"So you mean you were never diagnosed."

"Uh, yeah?" He scribbled something down on a notepad, then glanced at Phil.

"Are you alright son?" Phil jumped, startled out of his thoughts.

"Me? Yeah, I'm, I'm okay."

"You said that you live with Mr. Howell, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you remember about that night?" PJ bristled.

"I don't think-"

"It's okay." Phil interrupted him, giving his friend a small smile. To the officer, he said, "I don't think he was depressed, but he wasn't acting like himself."

"How so?" Phil picked at a ragged fingernail, ignoring the way Dan gawked at him.

"He wasn't home much. He was drinking a lot. He just seemed kind of stressed about something." Now he made eye contact, if only for a second. "I don't know what." Dan's stomach pitched.

"Mr. Howell, do you often drink?"

"Well, not all the time, but when I'm around friends yeah." And so it continued. Officer Warren seemed to have an endless list. Had Dan wanted to drink since he'd come home? Did he have any strange or unusual markings on his body that he couldn't account for? Had he made any new friends, either before the suicide or within the last twenty-four hours? How long they were there, Dan didn't know for sure, but it felt like ages.

"Mr. Howell, what is it that you do for a living?"

"I make videos and put them on the Internet." This got a raised eyebrow by way of answer.

"Who do you work for?"

"It's a YouTube thing. I get paid by YouTube."

"Is it a very lucrative career, or do you have money problems?"

"We're not rich, but we get by." The Officer leaned back in his chair, studying him closely.

"Were you having any sort of financial problems prior to your suicide?" Dan opened his mouth to say no, but stopped.

"Um...well, there were a couple of checks that bounced. But I paid it off." He made a sort of humming noise as he took another note, then closed his notepad. Pressed a button in his desk.

"April, please ask Officer Martin to come to my office. I want him to escort Mr. Howell to the hospital."

"I'm on it," came a static voice with a Northern accent.

"Wait, why?" Dan asked. Before he could get an answer, the door opened once more and two officers stepped inside.

"Where are they taking him?" Phil asked, his voice rising in panic. PJ put a hand on his arm in an attempt to calm him. The officer scribbled something down on the paper.

"Hospital, to get some DNA samples. If this is really Daniel J. Howell, then he'll match the records. Before he leaves I want prints." This he directed at the other men. Phil pulled away from PJ.

"I want to go with him." Officer Warren exchanged a look with PJ.

"Are you family?"

"No, but we live together. Or, we used to. It counts." The officer seemed to mull it over, but finally he nodded.

"Call me when you get home." PJ said. Phil nodded, and then they left.

"Thanks for coming with me," Dan mumbled as they were led to another part of the station. Phil said nothing, and when Dan turned to look at him he was surprised to see his best friend glaring daggers at him. He didn't try to talk to Phil after that, not until they got to the hospital.

Dan wasn't used to Phil being quiet. This wasn't just quiet- there was a poorly concealed fury in his eyes. His jaw was clenched, his entire body rigid. He'd never seen Phil act this way before. Dan shifted the bag of ice he was holding(a nurse had noticed the large black and blue bruise he was sporting), hesitant to speak. What could he even say?

"I'm sorry." How fucking profound.

"You're sorry? You do something like this and you think 'sorry' is going to fix it?" Phil scoffed. Dan rolled his eyes, the stress making him suddenly cross.

"What do you want me to say, Phil? Everyone thinks I died, that I committed suicide, and I can't remember the last three years of my fucking life. I don't know whats going on, and I'm sorry, okay?"

"No." Phil's voice was hollow. When he finally looked at Dan, his eyes were cold and unfeeling. "It's not okay." Phil stood up, and then he left, abandoning Dan in the empty hospital corridor. He didn't even look back.

Seeing his patents was the hardest part.

In his mind, Dan had been prepared to have to prove it was really him, that he'd need to dig up some vague family memory or something. But his mother knew him right away. One minute they were standing in the door, confused as to why they'd been called in. And then they saw him, and they were hugging him and crying and Dan finally had to accept the terrifying truth.

He'd been gone for three years, apparently dead, and he didn't remember a damn thing.

The doctor that had seen him had explained that he had amnesia, and that the x-rays they'd taken had shown that part of Dan's brain had swollen. His injuries indicated blunt force trauma, and the frying pan had been ruled out as the source of it.

Dan felt like he was watching all of this happen to someone else, like a crap lifetime movie or a terrible fanfiction. This didn't happen in real life. Amnesia cases like this were extremely rare. This had to be a bad dream. If only he could wake up.

When they finally released him late that night, he went home. His parents lived in a one-bedroom house now, and didn't have room for him. That aside, the doctor that the police had consulted had told Dan that he had a better chance at recovering his memories if he surrounded himself by things he was familiar with.

He was familiar with the London flat he shared with his best friend Phil. He knew it like the back of his hand. It was home. But the second he walked in the door, Dan was overcome with a sense of distance he'd never felt before. He paused just inside, leaning against the door. Something felt...off. Just like last night, when he'd come home. Something felt so inexplicably wrong about being in this flat, like he didn't belong here. He didn't feel welcome. He couldn't shake it.

Phil did nothing to help, either. Dan had seen him upset before, but this was different. When he went into the lounge, Phil was sat on the couch on his laptop. His hands froze over the keyboard, just for a moment, and then resumed whatever he'd been doing. That was all the acknowledgement he got.

"Hashtag awkward." Dan mumbled. Phil didn't respond. Dan didn't know what to do or say. Phil had never outright ignored him before. They never gave each other the silent treatment. But haven't you been doing it for three years? a voice in his head spoke up. You weren't dead. But you let them think you were. He deserved this, to be ignored. Phil was right. 'Sorry' couldn't fix this.

Not knowing what else to do, Dan shuffled off to his bedroom. He was tired of this horrible day he'd been having, and his head hurt from trying to figure out all the things he didn't know. He wanted to actually remember something, something good. He thought of the shoebox hidden under his bed, and felt a smile tug at his lips.

Phil didn't know about it, but Dan had what he thought of as his memory box. After they'd moved from Manchester, he'd begun to get homesick. The box had been from a pair of shoes he'd bought, just sitting on the bed he'd just put together. Dan had picked a few things out of his room that reminded him of the home he'd left behind, pictures of his family, little trinkets he'd gotten from fans or had bought with Phil. He'd never been overly sentimental, but it had helped. Dan no longer felt homesick, but continued to add to the box as the years passed.

Shutting his door behind him, Dan reached under the bed with his foot and pulled the box out. An alarming pile of dust bunnies accompanied it, and he realized that his bedroom hadn't been inhabited or cleaned in three years. The thought of finding a spider's nest briefly crossed his mind, but he brushed the thought away. He could be paranoid later. He pulled the lid off the box, wanting to forget all of this mess, just for a little while.

Instantly he knew something was wrong. The things inside had been shuffled around, put back in an order he didn't remember. It made him uneasy. Jammed in between the edge of the shoebox and a mint box full of movie ticket stubs was a wad of crinkled paper he didn't recognize. Frowning, he pulled them out and smoothed them flat.

They were pictures of his friends. Phil, PJ, Chris, Carrie, Louise, Ben. One of his parents. Dan had been fostering an interest in photography for several years, so the pictures in themselves wouldn't have been all that startling to find, but for several small details. One, he didn't remember taking them. Two, they were printed on regular paper, not the glossy kind he used when he printed any of his own pictures, which was rare. And he never printed pictures that turned out like these had, low res, grainy, out of focus shots. Three, whenever he took pictures of someone, they were aware of the camera, aware of him. These pictures were different.

People he knew, doing ordinary things. Louise dropping her daughter off at school. Ben walking down the pavement looking at his phone. PJ buying craft supplies. Phil leaving the radio station.

There was something eerie about them. Had he taken them? If he had, then why? Why had he printed them? And why were they in his box, instead of with his other pictures? The folder was in his closet somewhere-

The front swung open, coupled with a friendly shout of "I'm back!". Phil was home. Dan ran upstairs to his room, clutching the pictures in his hands. He had to hide them. Phil couldn't see them. But where would he put them?

His box. Phil would never look inside that. Dan shoved them into the box, kicking it under his bed seconds before Phil poked his head through the door.

"Hungry? I've got Tesco." He held up the bag.

Dan blinked as the memory faded, and realized he was kneeling on his floor. His heart was still pounding. Why had he been so afraid of Phil seeing the pictures? Being shy about his photography was one thing, but in that moment he'd been genuinely scared. Of what? Phil?

The brunette groaned as his head began to throb. The first thing he remembered, and it left him with more questions. Dan put the box away, an ugly feeling in his gut. He was afraid. He just wanted to know what had happened. Crawling under his duvet, he closed his eyes, intent on shutting out the world. What have I done?