Those words remained engrained in her mind for the rest of the day.

You almost died

Doctors had zipped in and out of her room all day, yet her concentration was purely focused on his reaction. She had not uttered a word to anyone, not even Gerry. She knew Strickland would take her off the case if he knew, it was just a matter waiting to happen.

Most people would have heard what he had said and been shocked at their own actions; shocked at how they had almost been the cause of their own death. The words stunning them into realising the enormity of what they'd done, but not her. Sandra knew what she had done, and didn't regret it for one second.

Not many people would ever know exactly how it felt. Unless you had fallen victim to the strong claws of depression; an invisible vacuum sucking the life from your very soul, you would never understand.

"Ms Pullman?"

She tore her eyes from the bed sheets covering her legs to face the woman now standing at the foot of the bed holding her ID out in front of her. In her trance-like state whilst inside her own head, she had failed to notice the knock on the door. She gave her a small smile to greet her before turning her attention to her lap again. Her fingers intertwined with each other, nails softly scraping at her cuticles, trying anything to distract herself from the mess inside her head.

"I'm Dr Thompson, but you can call me Cassie. What would you like me to call you?"

"Sandra," she mumbled.

Was this how everyone she encountered within her work life felt after the knock on the door? Knowing there was someone there to interrogate them, ask them all sorts of personal questions and expect them to give 100% honest answers.

"I'm the doctor who has been assigned to perform a mental health assessment for you Sandra. Is there anyone you'd like to be present for this?"

She bravely looked up at the woman and wiped a tear from her cheek, nodding.

"Is Gerry here? Erm, Gerry Standing."

The doctor gave a sympathetic smile before leaving the room to find him. A few seconds later, Gerry walked through the door and sat at the chair by her side.

"I told you I'd always be by your side," he reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze of comfort as he smiled. Cassie followed him and shut the door behind her before moving to the chair on the other side of the bed. She crossed her leg over the other and began opening her folder, searching for the questionnaire that was in there somewhere.

"Sandra, I'm going to ask you to be completely honest with me, okay? I am here to help you, we all are and we can't do that if you're dishonest."

She waited for the older woman's nod of understanding before continuing, "Do you want to talk me through what happened this morning?"

She shook her head and sniffed away the tears that were silently brewing.

"Okay, we'll come back to that one. Why don't you tell me about your home life? Any family?"

"It's just me. My mum lives in a care home, and my dad died when I was 14. No husband, no children. It's just me."

She gave a slight squeeze of Gerry's hand which Cassie noticed out of the corner of her eye; giving her the green light that work might be a safe topic.

"Tell me about work."

"I work for the met. We try to solve cold cases. There's four of us on the team. Brian, Steve and Gerry here."

The younger woman wrote down some notes on her paper, unsure what parts would be important in the long run, so she chose to write everything.

"How have you been feeling recently?"

"Awful. Hopeless. Sad. Like what's the point of anything anymore, when it doesn't matter. Nothing would make me happy so what's the point in trying anymore."

Those words very quickly broke Gerry's heart in two. She had been starting to open up to him privately, but nothing this heart wrenching had come up. He really had no idea how she was really feeling. Sure he had witnessed her worst moments of the past few weeks, but there had not been much conversation about feelings. He had been so focused on her acts of self destruction to remember there must have been some complicated thought patterns behind them.

"Have these feelings been impacting your work much?"

Gerry gave her a slight nudge to bring her back to the conversation, noticing her fixating silently on her previous answer.

She shook her head with a murmur, "Not really. It switches off, almost as if it knows how important my work is. Until now anyway."

Her head became a whirlwind of thoughts about the case. Has the case been the reason why she has declined so much, or was it just coincidence? She knew Strickland would never have given her a case kickstarted by a poor teenagers suicide if he knew how she was feeling. She quickly became trapped in the cyclone of what if's circling her brain.

Gerry noticed his friend dissociate into her thoughts, too distracted to hear Cassie ask her question.

"The case we're working on was brought to our attention because of a teenager's suicide note. I don't know if that's what pushed her into this decline or what but it can't have helped."

Cassie shook her head at the older gentleman's answer to her question.

"Sandra?"

The first time the idea of killing herself had ever crossed her mind, was the week she found out the truth about her father's death. As she entered the circus performer's ward, she knew the question she had to ask the man. The subject was just too raw for her, asking someone why they tried to kill themselves was too emotional. She longed to be able to ask her father why he had taken his own life, knowing there was a family waiting for him. She asked Antonio cautiously, as if his answer might provide some reasoning for her own father, however it was not meant to be. As he provided his reasoning, her mind began to wander, her mind exploring and constructing new ideas on how it might go.

That night, her mind hadn't been able to leave the subject alone. After being found in her car, drunk and passed out by Brian, the subject stayed in her mind, niggling away at her throughout the day. She had thought that as the days went by, they would leave her alone. Instead the days turned to months, and the months turned to years. Years had gone by with the thoughts being pushed to the side. The discovery of her brother, and the truth about her father's corruption and murder claims had dialied the thoughts down to the very minimum, only appearing a handful of times a month, barely whispering to her within the quiet times.

However, one day things changed. Completely out of the blue, the thoughts returned to her, shouting at full volume and choosing her own mind as their target. Instead of the questioning and intrigue at her father's choice, they were trying to pull her in the same direction.

The feeling of a hand gently touching her arm managed to pull her from her trance. A tear slipped from her eye as she looked down to the source of the touch; Gerry's hand gently squeezing her in an attempt to pull her back. How had she never seen his love for her before? No matter how hard her inner voices were trying to pull her in, he managed to push past them just enough for her to realise that there was someone else there. His concern for her over the years had been the reason the thoughts had never taken over. Despite her constantly brushing over the countless questions on her wellbeing, he had never failed to ask her. He was her lifesaver, her best friend.

Gerry had looked worryingly at his best friend, watching her spiral into her thoughts more than he had ever witnessed before. Cassie had stopped the questions, wanting to pull her back to reality before she continued. They had tried calling her name, the sound not reaching her brain.

He couldn't think of a way to bring her back, reluctantly resorting to placing a hand on her arm. He felt the small raised scars beneath his palm, a reminder to them both at how her mind had won many times. He knew that the questions about her self-harm were approaching, and he wondered how she would react to them, seeing as he hadn't been able to find out much himself. With a gentle squeeze, he had managed to bring her back to the present.

"Sorry,"

Cassie gave the woman a smile before continuing, "Sandra, I can see here that you've been battling with some self harm recently, do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head before whispering, "I can't."

Cassie knew better than to push her, especially after seeing how easily she could disassociate without much prompting.

"We need to discuss the incident."

Sandra nodded and gave a small smile to Gerry as he reached for her hand, reminding her that he was there. This gave her the nod she needed to push herself to be honest with the doctor.

"I just lost it. I've not lost it that badly before. I've had enough and wanted to stop feeling. I needed to stop the cycle."