James Moriarty was not a patient man. When his people had fallen into Holmes' custody, he had expected their escape and contact within a few days, if not hours. Now, approaching two weeks later, he was furious and at the end of his rope. Finally, he picked up his phone, and began texting. It appeared he would have to take action himself.

This morning (that was what Lorna liked to call the period of time after a long sleep) she got up a little more slowly, her joints popping unhappily as she sat up, her back still pressed up against Sebastian's. There wasn't a lot of room on the cot, but it beat sleeping alone. It became more and more pressing as time went on, too, that she stayed close to him. She'd been low on body fat to begin with, and now there was a real danger of her just running out of energy to keep herself warm with. The physical comfort was a good bonus, though, she had to admit. This might have been the longest period in recent history that she could remember where she'd gone more than a few days without wanting to punch him for doing something insufferable. She had every intention of letting Sebastian sleep longer, until she heard unusually loud noises outside. Then she reached behind her to jostle him. "Wake up. Something's happening."

He groaned as he woke, sitting up slowly in the familiar blackness, feeling around for her so as to make sure he didn't accidentally shove her off. "What do you mean?" he muttered, reaching up to rub the sleep from his eyes.

"I hear voices. Loud voices. I can't make out whether or not it's an argument, or they're alarmed.." she trailed off, holding her breath to be extra quiet as the noises moved closer to their cell. Very abruptly, a few voices cut off. "I suspect a few people have just been shot, but I could be wrong. Also, I don't want to get my hopes up."

"Could also be the wrong people getting shot, you've no idea," he said, straightening up now, though, eyes alight with interest. Jim... Christ, Jim, please...

"I'm willing to bet we'll find out soon," she sighed, leaning against him wearily and settling herself down for a wait. They didn't have to wait long at all.

The door banged open what felt like a few minutes later, causing both the inhabitants to flinch against the sudden light, and make whoever was standing in the doorway nondescript and impossible to make out. "I've found them," someone with a smoker's voice said, their silhouette showing them raising a radio to their mouth. "Bring the van around. Moran, Harrison, can you walk?"

"Depends on who we're talking to," Moran said gruffly, shifting to shield Harrison from the door, still squinting at the light. "And where we're going."

"It's Fletcher, sir," the man said, stepping further into the room, seeming to realize that they couldn't see him well enough to recognize him. Harrison wouldn't, of course, it wasn't her department, but he worked under Moran. "We're taking you back to HQ. I'm afraid that's non-negotiable. Boss was... very clear about that."

"Fletcher!" Moran breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "No, HQ is good. No arguments. I think we're alright to walk... C'mon, Harrison." He stood, only a bit unsteady, and offered Lorna a hand up, before heading carefully towards the door.

She followed in a bit of a daze, finding it hard to believe that someone had come and gotten them. She hadn't really believed that could be a possibility, and now it had happened, now they were getting out.

They encountered no resistance on the way out, although they did pass several bleeding corpses - all Mycroft's men - and then they were stepping out into an overcast, gray afternoon, and she was so shocked to see outside she didn't remember getting into the van until she was already inside. "Let's get going, c'mon, floor it," Fletcher was saying up front, and turned to toss Moran a shirt. "Thought you might want to look a little more presentable before you see him. He wants to talk to you before you check in with the infirmary."

"Understood," Moran said, nodding his thanks and pulling the shirt on, starting to button it up. He looked over at Lorna, wincing at how pale and thin she looked in the light. Her pupils were overly large, and he imagined he didn't look much better. He finished buttoning up and reached out to touch her shoulder. "With us, Harrison?"

Her eyes kinda wandered over to him, taking a moment and focusing slightly before she gave a slight nod. "Yeah. Sorta. I'm a little dazed, I guess. And m' tired."

"Well, we'll have real beds tonight. And hot showers. And food. So keep your head up." His voice was, for once, encouraging, but quiet so as not to carry to the others.

She nodded again, putting a little effort into trying to look a bit more alert. It didn't matter that she wasn't, as long as she didn't look like a wreck to the others. Moran, of course, knew she was a mess, but the others could be kept in the dark. The only person who really needed to know was Jim. Oh. Jim. She sighed, reaching up to rub her still-stinging eyes. "This meeting isn't going to be very much fun."

"Let me talk, alright?" he said firmly. "You're in enough hot water as it is."

He looked up as the van stopped in front of headquarters, and the place had never looked better. Or, at least, it would after this meeting. He pushed the van door open and climbed out, waiting for Harrison before heading inside. The smell of the place really drove home the fact that they were actually out. Out, and both alive. Not an ending he'd predicted. He reached up to rub at his eyes tiredly, and headed for the elevator, keeping his steps slow so as not to outpace Harrison.

She silently appreciated the fact that he kept it slow, working hard enough to keep herself from tripping to be able to worry about speed as well. She would have kept up with him, too, if Malcolm hadn't stepped into her path and caught her before she could run headlong into him.

Moran saw him coming out of the corner of his eye and was already turning when he approached. He grabbed Malcolm's arm in a firm grip, pulling him back. "Don't touch her. Not now," he said quietly, eyes boring into the other man's.

Malcolm looked like he was going to protest for a second and then he cleared his throat and stepped back, eyes on Lorna as she took hold of Moran's sleeve and got him moving again. In the elevator, she cleared her throat. "Thanks."

He shrugged. "We didn't have time for him being weepy. Moriarty's waiting," he said, eyes straight ahead as the elevator started to ascend.

"I know. Still," she replied calmly, catching sight of herself in the mirror and immediately wishing she hadn't, staring down at the floor intently as an alternative.

He glanced over at her, and sighed. "Come on. Look alive, or Jim will take you for dead and eat you." He straightened his back as the elevator doors opened, and headed out of them and down the hall to Jim's office door. He waited for Lorna to join him, then took a breath, and knocked.

Jim was sitting at his desk with a full glass of bourbon, turning over every possible thing that could have been done to his best-performing employees that would have prevented them from escaping. He let them stew for a minute at the door. "Come in," he said, finally, taking a sip of his drink.

He straightened the shirt one more time, before pushing the door open and stepping through, Harrison just behind him. He kept his chin up, unshaven or not, and didn't flinch under his employer's gaze. "You wanted to see us, sir."

"Yes, I did," Jim replied dryly, eyes sweeping down each of them. He didn't like what he saw, and he knew he wasn't even seeing it all. They had been in that place for two weeks, and what had happened early on, he couldn't say, but he was acutely aware of the heroin addiction they'd been given. He wasn't happy about that. "You both look like shit. Report, Moran." He didn't know if Harrison looked capable of speaking. Normally he would have pushed it, but starvation was just not flexible.

"We were kept in a zero-light situation for most of the time, sir, so my vision's off at the moment. I expect Harrison's is the same. We were force-injected with heroin and fed very little, and physically assaulted in a variety of ways." He kept his eyes straight ahead.

"Give me the list. You're both so thin I can't get a read off of you," Jim snorted, leaning back in his chair and setting both his feet on the table. "I hope you know how disappointed I am I had to go and get you."

He grit his teeth, took a slow breath. "I was beaten and shot with a taser on regular intervals. Harrison... underwent similar treatment." He looked away for a moment, then back to Moriarty, eyes unwavering. "Our failure to escape- and to evade capture- falls on me, sir. I thought I could trust a contact, but she brought us to DeWitt, and that lead to our eventual capture by Holmes. I then waited too long for them to become complacent, and ended up being injected with heroin. From that point, focusing enough to plan an effective escape was difficult, though we were trying."

Jim caught his momentary pause, his gaze snapping over to Harrison once more, taking another sip of bourbon when understanding hit him. It was their fault that this had happened to them, but it didn't mean he was going to let whoever had done it get away with it. He smiled, looking back at Moran, eyes sharp. "I see," he murmured, trying to decide how angry he should be. "What did you give up?" he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly. He was surprised when Harrison cleared her throat.

"Nothing but our dignity, sir."

Moran nodded. "We didn't give them anything sir. That would have been the first thing I told you." He was glad Harrison had spoken. He had seen Jim's glance her way. She needed to assert that she was still stable. "Especially given Harrison's background, her conduct was exceptional. I don't say that lightly."

Jim nodded, tapping his fingers on the table, then gave a slight wave of his hand. "We'll be talking about this more in a few days, Moran. But you're useless to me until you're clean. Go to the infirmary. If they don't confine you there you're confined to your floor, understood? I'll have food sent wherever you end up. Get out of my sight."

"Yessir," he said without complaint, just glad that they were escaping Jim's wrath for the time being. He turned for the door, heading out at a quick but steady pace, waiting for Lorna to join him before shutting the door.

Her posture immediately sagged, bone-deep exhaustion dragging her down. "Let's go get prodded by people with too many needles," she sighed, raking a hand through her filthy hair and turning to head for the elevator.

He nodded in agreement, following after her quietly. "Jim didn't kill us," he pointed out once they were in the elevator. "That's a plus."

"Which I know I have you to thank for," she replied softly, leaning back against the elevator wall. Out of habit she had almost reached for him. She knew that whatever they had had in the dark didn't carry here. She wasn't happy about it, but she could live with it if she had to.

He shrugged. "If anything more came down on you, Jim would have shot you himself. I can afford to take a little heat." He reached up to rub at his eyes tiredly, then took a breath as the elevator dinged. "Come on, let's go swear at some poor nurse until they cry."

"Okay," she shook her head, following him out of the elevator.

The nurses did not like the state she was in. There was a lot of tutting when they took her weight, and even more when they saw the makeshift bandage on her side, which also exposed her frighteningly prominent ribs. They didn't have many tips for heroin withdrawal, which she'd already been through anyway, so, unable to find a reason to make her stay, they sent her off. She assumed that Sebastian was already gone. He looked in better shape than her.

He'd been given a run over and had a few scrapes cleaned up, but there wasn't really much they could do for him. So now he was sitting on the ground outside Harrison's apartment. He'd been in his own, but he wanted to see if they released her, and the room had felt too small, for some reason. So here he was, turning a knife over and over in his hands while he waited.

She was a little surprised when she stepped out of the lift and saw him in front of her door, but didn't say anything until she came to a halt in front of him, looking down at him. "I'm going to get a shower," she said, breaking the silence."You can come, if you want. I do need to get in there, though."

He looked down at himself for a moment, still wearing the same grungy, torn trousers he'd been wearing for weeks now. "I should shower, too," he said after a moment, standing slowly and then heading for his apartment. "Just wanted to make sure they actually released you."

"I wasn't going to exclude you from the shower, but I can see personal space being nice after all that," she shrugged, unlocking the door and stepping into the doorway. "Seeya, Moran."

He faltered as she said that, half turning, but stopped when she mentioned personal space. Right. Space. That used to be his favorite word. And still was, for the most part. But now that space included her, somehow. He shook off the urge to turn around and take her up on the offer, instead walking quickly into his apartment and shutting the door. His body was aching, the craving for another hit starting somewhere low in his gut. A shower would help.

She sighed as he practically slammed the door behind her, stepping inside and shutting hers quietly. She didn't want to admit that she'D miss him. She'd gotten used to his constant presence, to frequent physical affection in the dark. She rubbed at her eyes and headed for the bathroom, noting idly that someone had cleaned up the place while she was away. She couldn't bring herself to be that happy about it.

He took the longest shower he had in years, scrubbing the filth off and relaxing sore muscles. Then he got out, dried off, and started going about the process of shaving and cleaning his haircut up a bit. Finally he looked as close to presentable as he was going to get, and went out to pull on pajamas.

He's just sat down in the living room when there was a knock on the door, through which wafted the smell of food. Within five minutes he was halfway through a large plate of gnocchi, trying to remind himself not to eat too much.

She mirrored his movements across the hall almost exactly, aside from the haircut part, just pulling her finally clean hair up into a bun and sitting on the floor of the kitchen to eat whatever it was they gave her. It was gone fast enough that she never really noticed what it was, and paid for it by having to get up and stand over the sink while her stomach decided whether or not to reject her gift of food. She just felt so weak. She hated it, and she hated being alone again, but what else was there but to move forward? She sighed, and once she was pretty sure she wasn't going to lose her food, threw away the takeout box and crawled into her own bed, which felt too big and soft and cold, and she curled up in a ball to try and sleep. Whether it was the heroin in her system or the sudden lack of a warm body next to her, she couldn't.

87, 88, 89...

He stared at the floor as it rose and fell beneath him with each shove of his arms. Normally he could knock out a couple hundred pushups easily, but he hadn't had the room to do a full one in the cell, and now he was breaking a sweat. He rolled onto his back, stretching his arms, eyes on the ceiling. He just wanted to sleep. That was all. That was the whole point of the pushups, to exhaust himself. But all the remaining energy in his body seemed focused on one thing.

Find a hit find a hit findahitfindahitfindahit...

He didn't want to imagine how Harrison was doing.

Lorna had spent the last few days trying to gain weight, and with little success. She knew that it would take a little while, but she was impatient to stop the random pains that had begun springing up in her body. These, she knew, were not the heroin. The fever and the cold sweats, those were the heroin, but the other symptoms was just her body half-dying. The only good thing about her thin state was that she knew that opiates lingered in fat, so it meant it would leave her body sooner. The thought made her sit up from where she'd been trying to sleep and pressing her hands into her eyes, taking a deep breath. Fuck, she wanted another hit. She wanted it so bad, but all she could do was sit here and feel like shit.

He stood, finally, doing the one thing he'd found actually helped. He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a syringe, removing the cap and tapping it a few times, examining the liquid before turning his arm over and pressing it into the center of the deep bruise on his arm. The saline did nothing, of course, but his body would get hopeful and generally shut up for a few minutes. It worked less every time, so he tried to use it sparingly.

He looked up as the intercom buzzed loudly and sighed, tossing the needle into the bin and walking over to answer it, clearing his throat before hitting the button. "Moran."

"Sorry to bother you, sir. Moriarty asked me to inform you of a new hire."

He tried not to sigh loudly enough to be picked up. "Yes, who is it?"

"An O'Hare, sir? Military record, special ope-"

He turned off the intercom so quickly he cracked the casing. He just sat there for a moment, staring at the wall, face pale.

No...

Eventually, she could no longer sit there and pretend that she could go back to sleep, so she slid slowly and carefully out of bed and made herself some tea in the dark. She'd stopped turning on the lights when it got dark out. It felt easier on her eyes, and none of the shit she'd gone through in that place had been in the dark. It had all been where she could see perfectly well. She accidentally broke the first mug she got out from the cabinet by placing it too hard on the counter, her breath just a tad more labored. Just forget it, Lorna. Just forget it.

He stood after a few minutes, unable to keep still, pacing the room back and forth, face in his hands, which shook, curling into fists and uncurling again, leaving red marks on his face from his nails.

The explosion of energy was sudden and left a trail of debris on the ground, dresser and cabinet spewing their contents all over his room. He was leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath, still shaking.

He could be downstairs. He could be downstairs right now... he might be here...

She was cleaning up the shattered mug with shaking hands when she heard a muffled rattling noise from across the hall. She wasn't surprised, really. Anything could push you to breaking things when you felt this strung out. Still trying to quell the nauseating images that kept coming into her head, she threw away the broken mug and got another one, determined to have some tea. That would help.

Harrison.

The thought came out of nowhere, and he didn't know what it meant. Would she help him? Did he need to make sure she- what- hadn't fallen victim to O'Hare's total harmlessness?

Get a grip, Moran...

But his hands were still shaking, and it took no thought to find the door and fumble through it to knock on hers.

She flinched despite herself as the sound came, and she just managed not to spill steaming water all down her sleeping shirt and bare legs. Just to be safe, she left the tea on the counter and went to answer the door empty-handed, pulling it open and looking up at Moran with instant concern. "What's wrong?" she frowned, stepping back to let him in.

He shook his head, stepping inside quickly and turning to shove the door shut, pressing his back against it, eyes scanning the room.

She reached out for him and then decided against it, dropping her hand before she touched him. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of him for, what had it been, three days, and now this? Whatever this was. "You have to give me something to go off of, here, Moran," she reminded, brows furrowed.

He nodded, taking a few slow breaths once it became clear that the room was empty. "He hired O'Hare," he finally managed," his voice unsteady.

"Oh. Hell," she sighed, shaking her head slightly and then turning, beckoning him with a twitch of her wrist. "Come on. I was just making tea."

He watched her go, muscling up into following her a second later, feeling like absolute shit.

She didn't speak again until she'd poured him out a cuppa and handed it to him carefully, making sure he had a good grip on it before she let go. "What are you going to do about this?" she asked quietly, picking her own mug and leaning against the counter to sip it. She would rather sit somewhere, but he looked like he wasn't ready to relax anywhere.

He shook his head, staring at the mug as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "I... I don't know. What the fuck is he doing? He knows- he knows - fuck... This is retaliation... fuck fuckfuck fuck ..."

Lorna had no idea how to comfort him. The only time he'd asked for help - for the same reason, to boot - he'd been drunk out of his mind, so she could get away with being a pushier caretaker, but now? "It doesn't sound like you can do anything about it, if Jim is doing it just to mess with you," she sighed, raising a hand to rub at her eyes. "So how can I help you? How can I help?"

"I-" he looked up, shaking his head. "I'm not here for... I don't know what I'm here for. I'm just here. I can.. I can go, I just wanted to make sure..." He looked around the room, and shrugged, eyes finally settling on his hands, seeming surprised by the mug of tea there and taking a hesitant sip after a moment of staring.

"You don't have to go," she replied quietly, clearing her throat and turning to dump her lukewarm tea down the sink. Suddenly she didn't want it anymore. "You're just... very unpredictable with this kind of thing, that's all. You don't have to go."

"I'm not unpredictable! Fucking Moriarty is unpredictable! Pulling this shi- fucking Christ..." he muttered, setting the mug down before he broke or spilled it. "Sorry. Sorry, Harrison. How... How are you doing?"

She sighed, turning back to him and leaning against the counter again, gripping the edge with her bony hands. "I'm always uncomfortable, even on padded surfaces. Sometimes I start thinking about trying to find a hit and then it just brings me back there and I start obsessing over.. what happened, and I have to take a scalding shower just to remind myself I'm not there. Sleeping is hard. I don't know, Sebastian. Not great, I guess. You don't look much better."

He laughed slightly, reaching up to press at his eyes. "No. No I guess not." He took a slow breath, looking up at her and noting the dark circles under her eyes. "When was the last time you slept?"

She gave a mild shrug, shaking her head. "I don't know. Maybe 48 hours ago. That was after a few benedryl. I didn't want to start relying on that, though. I just... can't get used to being home, again. It doesn't help that Malcolm tried to get up to our floor yesterday," she rolled her eyes, then let out a long breath. "I need to stop standing. Can we sit?"

He nodded in agreement, motioning for her to lead the way. "Still interested in killing Malcolm? I really don't care if I piss Jim off at this point."

She led him into the living room, where she collapsed on the sofa with an exhausted huff. "I don't even care at this point. It's hard for me to get the energy to feel real strongly about something one way or another. If you want to, go for it. Pawn off the ring in his dresser for all I care."

He sat next to her with a sigh, shrugging. "Eh. Fuck that. He's yours. Not going to mess with him unless you want me to. I don't Bogart kills." He looked over at her. "Fucking hilarious, isn't it? Doesn't really feel like we're out."

"Yeah," she snorted, "I know. I'm only marginally less miserable than when we were in there. I think that probably says a lot about me as a person," she muttered, staring up at the ceiling. Like hell she was going to admit she was disappointed he'd drawn away again, like he always did when he seemed to feel they'd gotten too close.

He nodded in agreement, lacing his fingers together and staring at them. He wanted to hold her. It was habit by now and if he hadn't locked his fingers he would have reached for her. But he couldn't do that now. That wasn't going to make this better, and they weren't in peril anymore.

She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to tamp down on those thoughts. It was getting increasingly hard recently, and she suspected it was only partially to do with being tortured with a heroin addiction. "You can stay here, tonight, if you want," she offered, trying to sound cool about it. She wasn't entirely sure she succeeded. "That's kinda our drill by now when something really shitty happens, isn't it?"

He let out a laugh, nodding a little, and looked at his hands. "That would probably be a good idea," he decided. If only so he didn't tear his apartment to shreds and break into the booze.

She nodded, taking a break from staring up at the ceiling to glance at him, trying to gauge his expression. As usual, when he wasn't angry or aroused, it was nearly impossible to tell. "Okay, well, with that out of the way I'm going to try and get some sleep before my internal organs start shutting down one by one," she snorted, standing with a crackle of joints. God, she hoped that stopped soon.

He nodded a little. "I'll... Should I take the couch, or...?" He didn't make any move to stand, but his hands clenched a bit tighter.

She chuckled, shaking her head. "Look at you, you'd barely fit. I'm not cruel. I am selfish. When you want to come to bed don't wake me up, okay, toaster?"

He smirked, but nodded a little. "I'm probably not going to be long... I'm tired and I also don't want to freak out and break your apartment."

"Yeah, don't do that. Only I'm allowed to do that," she joked, turning for the bedroom with a yawn and a slight wave of her fingers. She shouldn't feel so good to have him staying with her. This was just asking for a good kick in the gut later.

He watched her go, finally relaxing his hands and taking a slow breath. After a moment he stood, walking over to throw the deadbolt on the door. He checked that it was firmly secured, before walking back to the couch, glancing towards the bedroom door.

What am I doing here?

She crawled between the covers feeling significantly better about her chances of sleeping than she had the last time she'd tried. Why he was so comforting to her, she'd never know - for Christ's sake, he'd certainly taken advantage of it in the past - but if it meant she got some sleep under her belt, she wasn't going to argue. She'd deal with the emotional consequences as they came. She sighed, curling up, and stuffing a pillow under her head. If she'd ever felt about Malcolm the way she felt about Sebastian, she'd be a lot better off.

He lasted five minutes on the couch before he headed into her room and climbed into the free side of the bed. It was darker here than the rest of the apartment- the windows were well shaded- and for a moment it was almost like they were back in that fucking cell. There was one upside, however, which was that he didn't feel guilty reaching out to wrap an arm around her.

She was half asleep when he got in, but she was just asleep enough to roll into him further without any hesitation, and just awake enough to know that that was a bad idea. She mumbled something about being glad that he was there, and then she passed out, exhaustion overtaking her.

He wrapped his arms around her as soon as she moved, and did his best not to regret it. She mumbled something that he didn't quite catch, but he didn't care, just glad that she was finally asleep. He tucked the blanket up around her a little better, before returning his gaze to the room.

She woke up a few hours later pleasantly warm. That was what tipped her off to the events of the previous night; she was never warm by herself anymore. She stretched out her toes slightly but otherwise didn't move, content to just bask in his body heat for a few minutes before he noticed she was awake.

He noticed her breathing change after a bit, and looked down at her, just able to make out her face in the dawn light that was filtering in. "Hey," he grunted quietly, shifting a bit but not moving away.

"Hey. You sleep okay?" she mumbled, making no move to disentangle them. What does it matter anyway, some part of her said, Fuck it.

"Didn't feel like sleeping," he shrugged. "You seemed like you were out okay." He glanced around the room again, then returned his attention to her.

"Yeah. I feel a lot better," she nodded, reaching to rub the circles under her eyes. They probably wouldn't go away until she had a real sleep schedule again. "Do you want breakfast, or do you not feel like moving either?"

He laughed a little. "Food has been my best motivation the last few days," he sighed, sitting up slowly. "Breakfast sounds great."

She chuckled and scooted out of bed with a slight stumble, heading for the door with a yawn and a combing of a hand through her hair, in which the red was finally starting to fade a little. "What do you want?" she asked over her shoulder, stopping in the door frame. "I think I got eggs."

"I don't care," he sighed. "Everything sounds good lately." He climbed out of bed with a groan, stretching, and headed after her, glancing at the door to make sure it was still bolted.

She noticed his check but pretended not to, just stepping into the small kitchen to pull the eggs out of the fridge and started cooking them over the stove. She was, as usual, terrified of saying something that would set him off and corrode whatever they'd shabbily built up. "What have you been up these past few days? Besides eating, I mean. And shaving. You look a lot better in that respect."

He smirked a bit, reaching up to rub at his chin. "Trying to trick my body out of withdrawal and catching up with work, mostly." He pulled a carton of orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured a couple of glasses, sliding one her way.

"Let me tell you something," she shook her head, pausing to take a sip with a nod of gratitude. "Tricking your body out of withdrawal doesn't work, in the long run. Heroin addiction isn't all mental, it's not cocaine. That's the trouble with opiates. Your body punishes you for stopping them."

"I'm aware of the science. But it's partly mental, and that part shuts up for a few minutes if I inject saline," he muttered into his juice.

"I've heard about that one. Never done it myself. I'm more the 'locks themselves in a small room' kind of person. I'm not very healthy, though, so I wouldn't take any tips from me," she smirked, taking the eggs off the stove and pushing a plate of scrambled eggs across the counter a moment later. "I wish I could drink. That's how I numbed the worst of it last time. It's also why I don't remember much of it. I can't remember whether or not I had fevers last time," she sighed.

He winced slightly, nodding his thanks for the eggs and grabbing a couple of forks from the drawer, tossing them on the counter. "Is there anything you can take to get it down?"

"A couple ibuprofen is the best I can do for it, besides sitting in a cold shower, which I'm not going to do. It's not really my biggest concern, anyways," she muttered, busying herself eating for a moment so she wouldn't have to continue that train of thought. She didn't want to talk about it, but she was going to have say something to someone eventually. Unless it was nothing. But she wasn't willing to take that chance. "This is... probably nothing really. I'm malnourished, and I've been under a lot of stress and drugs so really it's probably nothing at all, but I'm a little.. overdue. Withdrawal can sit it's ass down and wait."

He glanced up, mouthful of egg, following the train of thought, before piecing together what she was saying. "Ah... well... Stress and drugs, definitely probably throwing things for a whack," he agreed around the food, though the implications of what she was saying were chilling.

"Yeah," she muttered into her orange juice, trying not to think too hard about it. "I'd go down to the infirmary but they wouldn't be able to give me an answer yet anyway. In a week, if things haven't... righted themselves, I'll go," she said quietly, making herself eat another bite of eggs and then relenting to her suddenly upset stomach and tossing the rest in the rubbish bin. "I don't know if I'll have the self control not to kill him."

He finished his own plate in silence, wondering which 'him' she was referring to and deciding that wasn't the best question to ask at the moment. "Alright... Well... For the moment just try to forget about it."

"I would if I could, believe me," she replied quietly, turning away from him with the excuse of washing her dish. Every time it came creeping back on her she could feel a muted panic struggling in her chest, as if she could do something now to stop it from happening then. She'd been free of nightmares so far, but she'd also been so tired that sleeping was like entering a coma. "This... isn't the first time he's done that to me," she sighed, resting her sudsy hands on the edge of the sink. "It's worse, somehow, this time. Maybe it's because I wasn't drugged out of my mind this time."

DeWitt, then. He stood, bringing his plate over and setting it beside the sink, before putting a hand out and pulling her gently to face him. "Lorna..." he sighed, ducking his head a bit to meet her gaze. What was he doing? Comforting? He didn't do comforting. But there she was, and here he was. What the hell got into him around her?

"Come on. Leave that for now."

She swallowed hard, looking down at their feet and giving a slight nod. "I'm trying," she breathed, the sound shuddering a bit. "My first instinct is to just obsess over it, you know? Like there's something I can do to change it or some shit. I know it doesn't help. Just like I know I haven't been dependent on heroin for years and there's no reason to start now," she said, a little more wryly, though when she looked back up at him it was with tired eyes. Sometimes sleep wasn't enough.

He stared at her for a long moment, before sighing and pulling her into his arms firmly. "Dammit, Harrison," he sighed. "I can count on one hand the number of times I've willingly hugged someone."

She got out a bit of a choked laugh, holding back tears with all the will she possessed, and leaned into him further, fingers clutching at his shirt. "Sorry," she said muffled into his chest. Oh god, this was going to end so poorly for her.

"Just shut up and cry already, will you? We both know you're going to," he sighed, picking her up and heading for the couch.

"Don't rush me," she retorted weakly, and then gave in, finally bursting into tears, sobs wracking her too-thin frame. She'd hadn't let herself cry in that place, hadn't wanted to give DeWitt the satisfaction, but crying in front of Moran was.. fine. It was okay.

He sat on the couch and pulled her into his lap, not saying anything as he let her cry. Normally it would have bothered him, but it was Harrison, and god knew she had a reason.

She can't see the landscape anymore
It's all painted in her grief
All of her history etched out at her feet

Now all of the landscape, it's just an empty place
Acres of longing, mountains of tenderness

- Florence + The Machine - Landscape -

Don't break character
You've got a lot of heart
Is this real or just a dream
Rise up like the sun
Labor till the work is done

- The Killers - Be Still -

The link for the entire playlist is on my profile page!