A/N Yes! Finally a chapter which everyone should understand! Except people who don't know about Sherlock Holmes… but why would you be reading this?

Please enjoy, and tell me your thoughts.

Reflection

For as long as he has known of it, Watson has disapproved of my cocaine habit, and has not been afraid to make his opinions on this heard. My own opinion has always been that I am not, as he believes, dependant on the drug; I merely enjoy its effects during times of boredom.

My opinion, however, was forced to alter drastically during my long hiatus. It was only as I began to experience the cramps, chills and unquenchable cravings that I was forced to acknowledge how very wrong I was.

I had no choice but to push through these symptoms of withdrawal. I had no money to fund my habit and was too ashamed to ask Mycroft, who would deduce where I was pilfering it away as surely as I could.

Indeed, shame ruled much of my life for those next three years. There were some days I could not bear even to look in the mirror, for fear of the desperate, sunken reflection which I knew would look back, showing what the cocaine had done. What I had let it do.

Time passed, as it always does and slowly my cravings began to disappear. By the time I made my return to London, the drug's grasp on me had disappeared completely.

Watson never commented on the disappearance of cocaine from my life, a fact for which I was immensely grateful – but not surprised by. Watson never cared about being proven right or wrong; he cared only for my well-being.

I can see that clearly now. As clearly as I see my reflection in a mirror.