A/N So SarcasticRealist, you get your way...I'm in the middle of writing chapter 11 and it takes a G/J twist. But there's another twist on top of that. Well, if you know the rest of the lyics, you can pretty much figure it out. Enjoy.

He looked up a long time later to find her still sitting on the couch next to him, unmoved. "You know, you can stretch out if you want." He kicked his legs up on the couch, giving her plenty of room to do the same. Her eyes met his and he could see the disappointment in them.

"Garret-" He shook his head.

"Look, you're the one that came over, I told you, if you didn't want to put up with it to leave. You stayed. But I'm not going to have this argument, not now." She glared at him.

"No, you're too wasted to." He chuckled slightly.

'Yeah. I am." He leaned back again. She was still staring at him. He grabbed the glass of scotch from the table and took a sip, trying to wash away the bitter taste dripping down his throat.

"You know, you of all people should know-" He chuckled.

"I know what I'm doing. Don't worry, I'm not going to drop dead in front of you." There was a part of him that was telling him that this wasn't smart, that it'd been so long since he'd last done this that he had no clue how his body was going to react, but he knew what to look out for. Besides, she passed med school, if anything happened, she knew what to do.

"Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but-" He shook his head.

"You know how many people are out there that actually made a concious choice to do this? To live the rest of their lives like this? More than just me, I can tell you that. There's lots of people who made the choice to forget about all of life's little problems for the rest of their lives. I can afford to, I don't see why I can't. It's not like I'm the homless junkie down in Roxbury-"

"What happens when you run out of money?" He shrugged.

"I have a couple of hundred thousand in the bank-not to mention stocks. I didn't have to work a day in my life after I turned 40. I'm not going to run out. Even if I had a hundred dollar a day habit-which even at my worst I didn't have-I have enough money to last me a decade." He could feel the nod starting to wear off, could feel the slight pain settling into his stomach, the first trace of a headache.

He looked down at the other line there, before looking at her. "So this is what you want from your life?" She asked, looking down at the line as well. "Waiting for one buzz to fade and then going right on to the next one?" He shrugged.

"It feels good."

"So does sex." He laughed.

"Yeah, but I don't have the energy to screw a woman every hour." She smiled, slightly. "But the fact of the matter is that I've made a choice, and I'm going to stick with it."

"You've chosen to throw your life away."

"If you want to see it that way." She glared at him. "Look, I already told you, I'm not going to have this argument."

"What if you get your job back?" He shrugged.

"On the nonexistent chance that I do get my job back, then I'll go back to only drinking too much. And you can stop glaring, it's loosing it's effect." He took a deep breath, trying to fight off the wave of nausea that hit him and shifted slightly to make himself more comfortable.

"You feel completely OK with what you're doing, not a hint of regret?" He shrugged.

"Only that I didn't think of this sooner." She just stared at him. "I told you, you don't like it, leave. That simple. But you're not going to talk me out of it."

"Can anyone?" He shook his head, regretting the action almost as soon as he did it.

"I'm set. You can't teach an old dog new tricks." She rolled her eyes.

"Would you at least stop making excuses for it?" He looked at her.

"I'm not. I know what I'm doing, and I'm not trying to give a reason why, aside from the fact that I like it. That's all. It's really not so bad for you, provided you're careful. You've seen it, most drug related deaths are due to bad practice rather than the substance itself."

"And you're using that to justify why you're not going to become just another junkie?"

"I never said I wasn't." She wasn't sure what hurt her more, the fact that he was doing this at all, or the fact that he didn't care about the consequences. "But it's not like I'm going to become some bum living on the street over this either. It's just enough to make me forget and nothing more."

"What about your responsibilities?"

"What responsibilities? I don't have a job anymore, Abby's all grown up. I don't even have a dog to take care of."

"Is that what it'll take?"

"I'll turn around and bring it right back to the pound." She sighed. "Give up Jordan, you're not going to be able to convince me otherwise."

"It's just that-how can you be doing this to yourself when you stopped me from doing it to myself? All I wanted to do was curl up and waste away and you refused to let me. You pretty much forced me into my job, you've forced me to at least come to workable terms with my mother's death, and here you are when faced with a problem going and wasting yourself away."

"You still have most of your life to live. Your fucked up past isn't your fault. Mine is. I'm the only one to blame for what I did, and well, I took the consequences. I gave up my job, most likely going to give my my medical license, considering the fact that the entire way I got into med school was on a sham, and put up with being smeared all over the front page headlines. That ex boyfriend of yours already got a good start on things." He gestured to the paper in front of him.

"I can't believe-"

"It's out already Jordan, he's just doing his job."

"But still-"

"What? You don't think half the city doesn't already know? Even if it didn't make the papers it'd still make it around the city in a matter of days."

"But-"

"But what? You can't protect me Jordan, not this time. Just give up."

"I don't give up."

"This time, you should."

"Well I'm not."

"You're only going to wind up hurting yourself over this, and I don't want to see you hurt."

"If you don't want to see me hurt, then why do it?"

"Because I'm a selfish bastard, that's why." She looked at him and shook her head.

"Fine then, you want to kill yourself, go right ahead. But I'm not going to gloss over it, you want to go on and do this, go right ahead, but you're just going to let everyone know that deep down inside all you are is a pathetic, selfish coward who when faced with a problem gives in and goes right back to your old vices." She got up and walked out, leaving him feeling strangely alone. Another surge of pain and nausea swept through his body and he looked at the other line for a long minute before rolling up the dollar bill and slowly inhaling.