A/N-If you catch the cryptic reference, I love you. I have a shirt with the reference and the logo...And also, so it begins again...Garret's on the way down...And like I said, if you didn't see it coming, well, you either didn't want to see it, or you're blind. I'm evil and demonic, and my nick is Snarky for a reason...and if you love Billy Joel you automatically get a gazillion instant karma points redeemable at any quik mart...and Jules, Jordan-well, you'll see what happens with Jordan. and Keridwen, i told you, if you didn't see it coming you musta had blinders on...

But Captain Jack will get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push 'n' you'll be smilin'
Yeah, Captain Jack will get you by tonight

Billy Joel-Captain Jack

He flipped through the file again. And again. The meeting with the parents had gone better than he had thought it would. Jordan had insisted on being there, she had started to tell them, but he had to do it himself. He had to tell them that their son had hung himself, that there was nothing to prove anything else. It was a suicide, pure and simple.

There was a copy of the note pinned to the file. He read it over again, he already had memorized it, but he still had to read it every time he flipped through it. It was short, blunt, and conveyed everything the boy had been feeling.

"Football season's over. And I've spent the last seven months trying to fix my life-I've tried to change everything, and it keeps making it worse-I can't take it anymore, I caused her to die, I'm sorry-I never meant for her to die, I never wanted her to die, I loved her, and its my fault I killed her and no matter what, I keep being reminded of that-I killed the woman I loved, and I can't take it anymore. I've done everything to try and get her out of my mind and it just makes it worse-I don't want to forget her, but I don't to live with her memory either, I can't handle it. I can't handle it anymore. I just want it to stop-Every time I try to go to sleep the only thing I can think of is the way that I killed her, how it was all my fault, and I can't take it anymore, the guilt, the emptiness without her-I loved her and she's gone. I can't take it-I don't want to hurt anyone, please, don't be sad, please don't get upset, it's nothing anyone did, the only one who fucked up is me."

The note was so raw, so emotional, written almost stream of conciousness. Blake hadn't known what to write, he just wrote down whatever came to mind. And the only thing that he could think of apparently had been the guilt. Blake had loved her, and couldn't stand living without her, haunted by her. Just like him. He was just like Blake, both of them, it hadn't only been Blake's fault, he should have noticed what was happening, he should have stopped it, but he hadn't.

He looked again at the report. The boy had been clean. For seven months. That's when Blake had started growing his hair, and his beard apparently. The boy had been a wreck, in absolutely horrible shape. Not eating, not sleeping, but clean, the last traces of drugs in his hair were seven months old. Seven months, seven months of nothing at all, no sleep, no food, it looked like he had just stopped caring about anything and everything, and he was sure that the boy had.

He ran his hand down his face. The boy had gotten clean, tried to straighten out, tried to become something for Abby's memory. And couldn't take it. He stared down at the fine white line in his arm. The stitches had been out for two weeks now, but the scar was still there. He had almost done it. He had almost gone and did what Blake had done.

He had been pushed to the edge just like Blake. He could feel the set of eyes on him, watching him. Jordan had been watching him carefully closely, never letting him out of eyesight all day. He was positive that she hadn't slept at all the night after Blake had come in, and he was pretty sure that she had been parked in the garage beneath his apartment.

He watched as her cell phone rang and she answered it, moving out of her perch at her desk where she could watch him through the window, trying to find reception. He got up and walked out, he couldn't take it anymore. "I'm going out for lunch." He said, sticking his head in to her office, knowing she was preoccupied with the phone call. By the time she realized it, he was on the elevator, heading down to the first floor.

He walked for a long time before he found himself the middle of Southie, looking around at what was there. Rundown apartments and ramshackle houses, he knew he was in a horrible area but he didn't care. He looked at the sign that hung on one broken down door and opened it, half expecting it to fall down as he pushed it in. But it stayed upright, he swore out of pure spite.

He walked up to the bar and ordered a scotch. He just needed one. One. One to take the edge off of the shock. Just needed one to bring him back down to earth. He took a sip of the amber liquid. God, how he missed the long slow burn that it traced down his throat. It had been far too long since he had last felt it. He spent a month without it, and he didn't want to miss it ever again.

He gulped the rest greedily. He was entitled to drink He had just stared what he had almost been in the eye. He had just cut the boy, his possible son-in-law open, and told what could have very well wound up as part of his family that their son had killed himself because of what had happened.

And he had almost done the same. He had almost killed himself for the same reason. That he couldn't forget her, that he loved her too much to forget her, and remembering her only hurt. Remembering her broke him down. He needed something to stave off the nightmares that would inevitably come back, he knew that she would show up again tonight, haunting him.

He drank down a second, a third. He gave up caring about anything. He had missed this far too much, He had missed the buzz, missed the feeling of numbness that coursed through him, the feeling of absolute nothingness. This was what he needed, this was what he wanted.

It was after the sixth that the bartender stopped him. "I'm fine." He protested but the bartender shook his head and called a cab, sending him home. He didn't want to be home, the nightmares would be at home, but he had no place else to go.

He trudged up the stairs and collapsed onto his bed, waiting for her to inevitably come. But she didn't, he had drunk her back into submission, the booze was working again to keep her at bay, he had been without long enough for it to work again. He grinned broadly at that realization as he allowed himself to fall back into a shallow slumber.