The bed sheets were soaked again, making him cold, making him shiver more and rubbing his skin raw. He didn't know if it was all sweat. There could be vomit. There was lots of snot and tears. He may have pissed himself. He didn't want her to check. He didn't want her to change the sheets again because she would see. Not just the sweat and piss and puke and tears and snot but his pathetic form all wrung out like the flannel she used to cool his fevered forehead while she looked at him with all that fucking love in her eyes.

How the fuck could she still love him, a pathetic husk transporting a withered brain that couldn't even count ten decimals of pi or name any of the noble gases which is primary school. Fucking primary school. And all because of this need. It was screaming, drowning out everything and making his bones vibrate under his skin. Making his skin feel as if it might slough off at the slightest touch. Making his fucking hair stand on end.

And oh god he hated. He hated himself. Ian and Padraic and all of those bastards in that fucking barn. He hated James Moriarty and Sebastien bloody Moran. Everybody who was walking around without this goddamned fucking need permeating every cell of their fucking bodies. He didn't want to cry but another wave of muscle spasms seized him and he moaned in agony.

She came rushing into the room, bringing with her the scent of lavender and citrus and clean skin and laundry soap. She reached him with the dust bin just in time for him to empty his stomach into it.

"Go away," he said when he finished.

"Sherlock I need to change your sheets again. Remember how much better you felt the last time?"

"Doesn't matter. I'm dying. It's worse. It's going to kill me this time."

"It's not going to kill you, Sherlock. Now I need you to get out of bed and put on new pants and a shirt. I need to change your sheets."

The floor was all he could manage, which was fine, because it was cool and he was burning up again. Somehow he got the new clothes on and got back in bed when she was finished with the sheets. The duvet had been tossed aside long ago. It hurt to have it on top of him even when he was freezing. He got a moment's pleasure from the cool dry sheets against his skin before the aching started anew.

"Sherlock, when you were in rehab before, did they give you anything to help with this?"

"Clonidine. Valium. Doesn't matter."

"Sherlock—"

"No! Don't you dare go over there. They won't help you and they'll fucking laugh at you for even trying. They can see me right now. They're probably all laughing." He curled up in the fetal position as a stomach cramp hit. He needed to get her out of there before he said something stupid and hurt her. "Leave me alone, please just leave me alone, Molly."

She sat on the bed. He could hear her inner conflict as surely as if she were speaking aloud. She was unconsciously stroking the curve of her belly. He wondered if she was soothing the child, or herself.

"Don't be afraid to need me." She kissed his sweaty forehead and walked out, leaving the door open.

He slept for a while. Sort of. His dreams were disjointed and terror filled. The worst one found him in a crowded city square, and every time he found someone he thought he knew, they turned around to reveal faces that had no features. He had just awoken when Molly came in.

"You look a tiny bit better," she said, feeling his forehead. "Martha's coming. I lost track of time and just remembered it's her day to come. Do you want me to send her away?"

"No. What did you tell her while I was gone, anyway?"

"That you were away on business. Do you want her to take a look at you? We could just say you're sick."

"Why would I want her to take a look at me? I know what's wrong. She can't get me anything that would actually help, and I'm sure she knows the signs of withdrawal anyway and Moriarty would have to give her more shock treatment or whatever to make her forget so tell her I'm jetlagged or something and don't come back in here unless I'm screaming bloody murder."

He curled up, trying to make himself as small as possible, to escape the vice that was squeezing his back and legs and arms. Maybe if he went in the same direction it seemed to be squeezing, it wouldn't hurt as badly. When he was able to open his eyes again, she was gone.

He woke up from another bout of sleep and could hear both women downstairs. Martha's voice carried more than Molly's, her laughter grating. He wanted to yell down for her to shut the fuck up, but he knew it would only bring her up here to scold him, and she would see. And even if she didn't know why he was sick, he looked bad enough that she might insist on a hospital. Which, as he told Molly, could cause further complications for the unwitting woman. So best just to put his damp pillow over his head and wait it out.

He expected Molly to come up when the midwife left, but soon realized she'd taken him at his word about leaving him alone. Good. Maybe she was finally learning that he was poisonous and rotten at the core and nothing would ever save him. And now she was tied to him forever and if he couldn't get them out of this, she wouldn't even have anything to show for it. No brilliant little baby to love—and she did love it already—just tied to him forever in loss and regret.

He sat up, hoping a change in position would ease some of his pain, but it only made his stomach heave. He rocked back and forth and tried to breathe, tried to tell himself this was the worst of it. Day three was always the worst. It would be terrible for another two or three days but it wouldn't be as bad as this again. He had done it without medical assistance before, to prove to his brother he could. But he had also been twenty one years old and still thought himself invincible.

Now he was wrecked. Run down mentally by his weeks of captivity and the strain of what had happened to Molly. Run down physically by being drug around the world in a haze of debauchery for six weeks. He almost wished that Moriarty had brainwashed him, too. But even if it were possible—and he doubted it—Moriarty wanted Sherlock to experience it all. Every lash of the whip and turn of the screw.

Sherlock couldn't bear to be alone another second. Even though he knew he was the worst thing that had ever happened to her, and he should leave her alone, he needed her. It didn't matter if she only came in and sat in the chair and read he couldn't bear to be alone with himself anymore. So he called her name, and she came running, like always.

She lay down beside him, wrapping her little body around his as best she could with her growing belly between them. She held him, telling him about all the cases he'd solved that she could remember, and how grateful the families and friends were, until finally he drifted into a dreamless sleep.