Author's Note: Welcome back to Testimonies of Broken Hearts. I would like to thank you all for reading. In this chapter you see the bad bits of Sherlock, before he became a consulting detective. I decided to post this because I didn't post the last chapter when I planned and who cares about homework and finals, right? I mean, all I have to do is find answers to 4 awful questions from Machiavelli's The Prince and continue studying for seven other classes. Oh god I'm gonna fail. But, this is a good stress relief for me, so thank you.

I chose this song because I love Linkin Park, the song kinda fits in a few different ways (not just his addiction), and just keep an eye out for that stuff, I guess.

Testimonies of Broken Hearts

A Sherlolly Fan Fiction

Chapter Four (4)

Breaking the Habit

Memories consume/ Like opening the wound/ I'm picking me apart again/ You all assume/ I'm safe here in my room/ Unless I try to start again/ I don't want to be the one/ The battles always choose/ 'Cause inside I realize/ That I'm the one confused/ I don't know what's worth fighting for/ Or why I have to scream/ I don't know why I instigate/ And say what I don't mean/ I don't know how I got this way/ I know it's not alright/ So I'm breaking the habit/ I'm breaking the habit tonight.

Sherlock sat in the waiting room of the hospital, feeling awful. He had been so stupid, so ignorant of the stupid crack head he had once bought from before he had quit drugs. Occasionally he would get some, but hadn't in the past year since he and Molly had been together. He knew it was a risk to even have that over his head, but Sherlock let the world know of his love for Molly, taking her home for the holidays, giving her a necklace with their initials, and not clearing the air with his previous drug dealer, Seb.

It was due to Sherlock that Molly was in the hospital. It was late March and he shivered in the coat Molly had given him just months before, feeling colder than he had in months. He owed some guy money for his previous habit of using. Occasionally he would shoot up, but it wasn't often enough.

Molly had been walking to meet up at the coffee shop with him as she had gone to a group study session with a couple of her friends that day.

Miss, could you help me? a man said, stumbling down the pavement.

Are you alright? She stepped toward the man, looking at him curiously. He was a big man and he smelled awful and Molly could not place the scent, rather trying to avoid the use of her nose. He looked as if he had never gone a day without drugs in the matter of many years of using. She had seen the type. She was still trying to figure out the best way to help him when he grabbed her arm.

Molly was dragged into an alleyway by the big man, thrashing and trying to get away, attempting to scream and pull herself from his grasp. Get off of me!

He had started to beat her, to pull her clothing off and she tried to scream against his big hand that clamped over her mouth. She had bit him and let out a half second scream. That was all Sherlock needed.

It had been getting a bit late and Sherlock was growing worried. Molly always texted if she knew she was going to be late and rarely ever didn't have her phone on her. He had gone out to meet her halfway when he heard the scream. Sherlock had gone running towards the alley.

In the aftermath of a battle that Sherlock didn't remember, Sherlock found his fists and face bloody and other people pulling the two off of each other. He ran for Molly, knowing that she would be in much more of a worse state than he. She was unconscious, apparently thrown against the wall by the man and suffered a head injury, losing a lot of blood. Her body was covered in scratches and bruises, and would probably gain a black eye after.

"Sherlock Holmes?" a doctor said, walking up to him.

"That's me."

The doctor sighed. "Molly is suffering a head injury as well as some amnesia. She's in a decent state, but her memory is corrupted. We are unsure of exactly how much is gone, but she seems to remember facts and things you would find in textbooks really well. And she keeps asking for you, her friend."

Sherlock glared at him. "Molly isn't just my friend, she's my-"He stopped. What did the doctor mean by friend? He gave the doctor a questioning look, only to have it confirmed.

"She says she remembers up until this time last year. She can't recall the last movie she watched, if she had gotten to the coffee shop, or the fact that she even had a boyfriend."

Molly didn't remember a thing about her social life one bit. Her studies were truly as close as she ever came to understanding why she was there.

When Sherlock did see the injured girl, she smiled. "Hi, Sherlock. Glad you came to see me."

He nodded and sat in the chair beside her. He stayed with her, watched television with her, and talked with her. Just before the bandaged girl drifted off to sleep, she said something to him that ripped his insides apart. "You're a good friend, Sherlock."

Years passed and he had never told her the truth. No one had the heart to tell her that her favorite misfit was her boyfriend for months. He had been selfish and started to distance himself from Molly instead of telling her the truth. He told himself that they didn't need each other, and that they were awful together and was best as just friends or even further apart. Molly wouldn't remember anything and he could delete it…eventually.

When the two graduated they said their goodbyes, Sherlock claiming that he would contact her. But he never called or texted her. He never showed up randomly at her flat or her job at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in the morgue, having taken the path of pathology. She would cry, wishing that she had her friend back and that he would talk to her for hours like they used to and he would gaze over her with those beautiful grey eyes that always made her shiver.

He was always so sweet to her then when they were young and foolish. The last few years he had distanced himself before tossing her out the window.

Molly knew Sherlock wasn't looking for a job.

But she had no idea of how truly awful his return to addiction after their departure could become.

Curly black hair was matted against the man's head with sweat and rain, covering his eyes as he curled himself against the cold wall. He was skinny, a bit too skinny and his cheek bones were sharper than they ever had been and his clothing was much too big for his small frame, almost as if he hadn't eaten in days. He rubbed at his arm and breathed visible, irregular breaths.

He had been lying beside a building, curled into a ball as he had no idea where he was, or where to go. He was freezing in the late November evening. Sherlock licked his lips and let out a pained groan, gaining the attention of a homeless person not far from him. Sherlock's heart was slowing as each minute passed by.

"Hey, are you okay? You look a bit…" The homeless man bent down and took Sherlock's wrist into his hand, feeling the slowing pulse of his narcotic heart. The man knew instantly that Sherlock had ODed, having done it himself before. The homeless man ran to a nearby pub and made them call an ambulance for Sherlock.

Not ten minutes later Sherlock was being loaded onto an ambulance, the paramedics rushing to St. Bart's Hospital for immediate treatment.

Sherlock awoke two days later in the hospital to his brother Mycroft Holmes.

"Sherlock, where did you go wrong?"

He didn't answer, choosing to instead ask for a cigarette. "I need something in my system. I'm already bored."

"You were taken here for overdosing and now you want a cigarette? Sherlock, your condition is sever and I will not allow my brother to continue with this. It's high time you find yourself a job and do something with your life. You are educated and are fortunately wealthy."

"Please, you and mummy are wealthy, you because father helped you get into the government before he died and mum because he died. I haven't a penny to my name."

Mycroft frowned. "You are going to get clean, Sherlock. I've requested your transfer to a privet clinic for your rehabilitation in the next few days. Find something to do with yourself other than drugs, Sherlock." The eldest brother stood and left his brother, swinging his umbrella as he exited the hospital.

The eldest brother kept good on his word. Mycroft admitted Sherlock into a privet rehabilitation center in which Sherlock received treatment, group and individual therapies, and an occasional pack of cigarettes from Mycroft in the months to come after his overdose. The staff learned not to object to the occasional cigarettes, knowing that Sherlock would always find a way to smoke no matter how hard the staff tried.

Sherlock's privet therapist sometimes even allowed the man to smoke during their sessions rather than argue with the stubborn man. He opened up more when smoking anyways, always rather irritable when he didn't and was refused the one guilty pleasure he was allowed.

Just months later and Sherlock was clean but unsure of what to do.

You love puzzles and you've said that you're familiar with crime. Why not become a detective of sorts, Sherlock? Perhaps your brother could talk to Scotland Yard and see what he could do for you. His therapist had been desperate in finding ways to keep him clean, as she was only human and he was….different than other addicts.

I know that if you don't find a job, you will go straight back to drugs. You may be different, but you were still addicted to drugs just like the others here. Given the chance, it is quite possible that you would start again and I would see you here in a matter of weeks. You are educated, sharp, and you notice everything. We never want to see you walk back in here.

Why? Because I've made some of the others even more mentally unstable than they already are? Or perhaps the fact that I am brighter than any of the idiots here, no matter how high of a degree they have with their name on it?

Those reasons, and the fact that you are much too smart to be here, Sherlock. Why not at least try being a detective? Have fun with it, well as much fun as one could have.

Yes, a detective job would be suitable. He could work as a detective, but what type? The police didn't contact privet detectives for anything and Sherlock did not want to be left out of the action. It would distract him as he had grown hard from his time as a junkie. He didn't even flinch when thinking of Molly. No one knew her, or never knew that he had once known her and hadn't brought her up.

A consulting detective, Sherlock decided. I can have my own clientele and be able to be called upon by the police. It's a long shot, seeing as how I'd be the first and only, but it's worth a shot.

Sherlock decided to pay his favorite older brother a visit.

"A consulting detective? I've never heard of such a thing."

"Yes well, I made it up. I'll be the one and only where I can have my own clientele and be able to converse with the police." Sherlock sat ignoring his tea, watching his brother. "You did say you would help me, Mycroft. After all, it was partly your fault that I did start."

"I didn't know that you would actually take my joke seriously and go find yourself a drug dealer."

"Well that's one thing I could do when I was bored; listen to some stupid ideas that would originate from you. And that led to me finding other ways of distractions.

Mycroft sighed. "Fine. I will contact the Detective Inspector and get you a…interview as one might say."

"Where I look over the crime scene and tell him exactly what happened."

"Yes, exactly my point, Sherlock." Mycroft let out another sigh. "All of this because of a girl."

Sherlock's jaw locked. "You never gave her a chance."

"I didn't need to. Love is a weakness, Sherlock, as all feelings are. They are just chemicals in our brain."

"You have no idea what it is like."

"And you haven't seen her in years and still refuse to let this go. You told me you deleted all of it, but I can tell that it's still there. You have the mind to achieve greatness and you choose to be a detective. I will allow you the choice of job but you must let those memories go before they are the end of you, Sherlock."

"My drug addiction might've had something to do with her, but that didn't mean that it was all because of her. I get bored, Mycroft."

"As do I, but I don't go around on the streets looking to get high, brother. Just, try and forget her, Sherlock. You've already ruined your life and I don't want to find my brother stuck in the hospital because of drugs again. Now, if you will excuse me, I am late for a meeting." He stood and headed for the door.

"How's mummy? I can tell you saw her earlier today."

Mycroft stopped and turned towards his little brother. "She misses you, Sherlock. You might not believe me, but she favored you out of the two of us." And with that, Mycroft left Sherlock with his thoughts. And this was one time Sherlock tried to take his advice seriously.

Except, sometimes, deleting some memories could be almost impossible.

It wasn't a week later that Sherlock got a call from Scotland Yard.

Greg Lestrade was the new Detective Inspector of Scotland Yard and was skeptical about conversing with a former junkie about crimes, but Mycroft with a 'minor' placing in the British government, was able to convince him to allow Sherlock to prove himself. Mycroft had never been kinder to his younger brother.

Sherlock Holmes arrived at the scene of a strange suicide the Monday after his release. The scene didn't seem quite right and he walked with D.I. Lestrade into the building. He examined the body, pulling up facts that nobody could see by just looking. He had, as he put it, observed and deduced.

The gun had been upstairs and had no fingerprints of the man on it. The man was not wearing gloves and had been drug down from the second story, scratches on the banister obviously new. The bullet had entered the head from the left side while the man had been right handed. One wouldn't commit suicide and think about which hand to use but which was more comfortable to hold the gun in and fire. The killer had left a cheap handkerchief next to the body with blood that was not from the corpse, but a nosebleed. The blood was identified as not the corpse, but his sister's husband who wanted the man's fortune for himself.

Lestrade was impressed but not fully convinced of Sherlock being clean or 'perfectly sane.'

Author's Note: Virtual cookies to anyone who figures out the other ways this song works! Okay, maybe not cookies but I can see this song going in a couple of different directions. It is honestly one of my favorite Linkin Park songs and I rather like this chapter. Sherlolly fluff is always cute, but writing about a struggle is much more fun than, "And they kissed and it was magical and butterflies and rainbows and they would forever be together." Nicer to read, but more boring to write, in my opinion. On another note, almost unrelated to Sherlock: ten days till Christmas and the Doctor Who Christmas Special! Welcome Peter Capaldi with open arms, and sob all over Matt's bowtie as you wish to keep him forever! I know I'll miss him.

Thank you all for reading.

Song: Breaking the Habit

Artist: Linkin Park

I do not own anything.