A/N And let the angst begin. It all goes downhill from here. Well, it's kinda a slow descent for a few chaps and then right off a bridge...

And we just want sleep
But this night is hell
I'm sick and sunk and I blame myself

Brand New-Failure by Design

She was there, she was sitting across from him, laughing with him. She had a glass of scotch in her hand, sipping it and making fun of him. "I'll make you a scotch drinker yet." He said with a grin and she laughed.

Suddenly, she changed, she was standing over him, a look of pity, a look of rage on her face. "Maybe." She said, staring at him. "Maybe if you had noticed, you would get to turn me into a scotch drinker." This wasn't her, this wasn't his Abby. This was evil.

"What?" He started and the body rose up off the floor.

"Why didn't you notice? How could you have missed it dad? How could you have been so blind to see your daughter slipping away before you? Were you too busy to notice me? Too busy to see your baby girl dying in front of you? Were you too busy to love me?" She was standing nose to nose with him.

"No-" He started. It wasn't true. He wasn't too busy. He noticed, he just didn't want to see it. He had noticed it and had come up with excuses for it, because he didn't want to believe that his baby was still on a downward spiral. He had noticed it but his mind had refused to let him comprehend it.

He backed away from her. "No." he repeated, backing over the chair, onto the floor, crawling backwards. "No, I love you, I do-" He started, and she came closer and closer.

"You always were so harsh on me. You always were so mean-arguing over the stupidest thing, over giving me anything, and you say you love me?"

"Please, Abby, baby-" He wanted to hold her, pull her tight, tell her that he did love her, prove to her that he did love her. He wanted to do something that show that he did care.

"Why, are you just going to try and turn me into your perfect standard?"

"No, you were always perfect-" he started, trying to back away again, but hitting the wall.

"I was never good enough for you, and you always let me know it." She kept closing in on him, and when they finally touched he awoke with a start.

He was dripping with a cold sweat, tangled in the sheets. He sat up straight, trying to catch his breath, panting. In and out. In and out. Eventually it slowed to something just shy of hyperventilating. He needed a drink.

He retreated back to the living room, grabbing his bottle of scotch and a glass en route and poured out a generous measure. He downed it in two gulps and poured another, which was gone in three. The third glass he sipped, enjoying the long slow burn down his throat.

He wanted to erase the nightmare. Erase her. Erase the blind fear, the black depression that he had felt. He was lost without her, he had always loved her, but it was truly a case of never knowing the water until the well was dry. He didn't realize how much she meant to him and how bad of a father he had been until she was gone. And it left him broken. He should have known, and he didn't, he had been a horrible father.

Every time he thought about her, he wanted to break down, but something stopped him, he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to. The lump in his throat would form, tears would sting his eyes, but they would never fall. Never, no matter how much he wanted them to, he couldn't sob for her, he wanted to break down, but he couldn't. He couldn't sob, couldn't cry for his own daughter. He didn't even shed a tear at the funeral.

He downed the rest of the glass with one long gulp. He was a horrible person. He felt the grip of the booze, the familiar lightheadedness and he grinned, downing one last glass before capping the bottle and heading back into the bedroom, ready to sleep the dreamless sleep of the drunk. The pain was dulled and he had chased away the nightmares.