Thank you so much to everyone who read the last chapter! You is all amazing. Glad to be getting this second one out on time and I really hope you enjoy it!

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Self-Harm, Drug Use, Suicidal thoughts

Everyone stayed silent as John grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom and proceeded to clean and dress Anna's mangled arm. He carefully applied antiseptic to the wound, she didn't even flinch at the sting it caused; he put on gauze and wound a bandage around it to keep it in place. Once he was done he went to put away the kit and Molly engulfed Anna in a tight hug, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

After an hour of silence, Molly and John both announced that they had to leave. They each mumbled their goodbyes to Anna and Greg, before stepping out into the warm summer night and walking to the nearest bus stop, leaving the other two together.

"You can leave too, Greg." Anna said after a few minutes, standing up and taking the mugs back to the kitchen.

"Anna, I'm not just about to leave you here on your own," Greg replied, standing up and following her to the kitchen, "Look at me. Your hands are shaking and you just scratched up your arm; I can't leave you by yourself, you know I can't. Given your history, I should be taking you to the hospital in the squad car right now, but I'm not going to because I know how much you hate it. So please just let me do what I have to."

The girl nodded reluctantly, pushing past the DI to go to bed.

"Goodnight, Lestrade." she muttered. That couldn't be good, she only called him that when she was pissed off.

"Goodnight, Anna."

9 months ago, Lestrade's POV

"Anna?" Lestrade yelled, knocking on the door, "Anna, I know you're home, your light's on and you never leave it on when you go out. Look, Sherlock just texted me and said to check up on you. All he said was 'She needs help', dunno why he couldn't come himself but I'm only seeing how you are, I won't stay long."

He waited a few more moments, only to receive silence. Sighing to himself, he reached for the flowerbed, and pulled up a stone with a container on the bottom. He proceeded to get the key and slide it into the lock, the door clicking at he turned. He pushed the door open and strode into the cosy flat.

He quickly made his way to the living room, only to see the owner of the small flat splayed across the couch, her eyes closed. The table was completely clean other than an empty hypodermic needle. Quickly processing the scene, Greg realised what had happened and swore before springing into action.

He hurried over to the girl, grabbing her wrist to take her pulse. It was strong and but elevated. He tapped the pale face that presented itself to him, trying to arouse the unconscious scientist.

"Anna," he said with authority, "Anna, I need you to talk to me. Come on."

She roused, only to bat him away lazily. He sighed in relief as she slowly sat up and looked towards him, her pupils constricted.

"Hello, Greg," she said, her speech slurred, "What a delight that you have decided to join me."

Seeing his expression, she interrupted him before he could ask any questions.

"Before you ask, which I know you were just about to, it's morphine. I did the calculations, I'm not ODing, I'm fine." she drawled the last few words, clearly struggling to remain comprehensible. Her eyelids were drooping and she wanted to lay back down

He was dumbfounded. How on earth could she think she's okay? He wondered, She's literally laying on her couch, high as a kite on morphine and she thinks she's fine.

"Does Alex know?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Anna," he said after a few minutes, "You know I have to take you in, right? I mean, I'm a DI, I can't let you go. Given the fact you clearly keep needles around, you're a regular user and I can't just let that slide."

"But what would be the point, Lestrade?" she retorted, "Give me a criminal record, have me forced into some rehab centre, then once they let me out it'll just start again? What the police force don't understand is that I do this because I have no choice. I'm not a rebel, I don't get a thrill out of breaking the rules; I simply can't keep going without it.
Anyway, they would never believe that little 23 year old genius Dr. Ethelin would be a bloody junkie. I can hide it, and I can rig the results if they do a drug test. I've planned everything down to the last detail, Lestrade, and nothing you or your goons could possibly do would beat me. I have planned my whole life. You aren't capable of taking it away."

When her little speech was over, Anna stood up unsteadily and stumbled towards her room, flicking the lightswitch for the living room on the way out.

"Goodbye, Lestrade." she shouted over her shoulder.

Greg stood there for a few moments before heading out to his car. She has a point…

Present day, Anna's POV

The next morning, the two friends stood in Anna's kitchen, with Lestrade preparing pancakes for breakfast and Anna making tea. Anna had had a restless night, her thoughts spiraling further and further into depression. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to have the confidence to thank her friend for his help, for his support throughout the past year… But she couldn't do that. She just couldn't.

They sat at the table, pancakes sitting there, smothered in butter, with an awkward silence hovering around them. Anna prodded her food without eating anything. She was too engulfed in the seemingly endless torment of a thought spiral to notice when Greg spoke. She looked up.

"Are you able to go to work?" he questioned, concerned.

"Yes." she mumbled, still stabbing her breakfast.

"I know you're lying but I'm not going to push you. Do you want someone to come check up on you later? I would have Molly do it but she's busy, something came up."

After he got no reply he sighed and got up, producing his phone from his back pocket.

"I'm just gonna call John and tell 'im to come to St. Bart's later, make sure your arm is okay."

"Right," Greg said after a few minutes of quiet conversation, "John's gonna come see you at Lunch to change the dressing on your arm. Text me if you need anything, and please call Alex."

With that, he left, leaving Anna once again alone in her own mind. Alex… Her consciousness was filled with ideas to alleviate the pain she felt. She wrote each idea down on a page and circled them, writing down the pros and cons of each option.

Suicide:

Pros: Effective, Permanent

Cons: Painful, Hurts Others, Possibility of Failure

Self-harm:

Pros: Instant relief

Cons: Easily Visible, Temporary, Inconvenient

Drugs:

Pros: Effective, Euphoric, Easy, Not Easily Visible

Cons: Expensive, Temporary, Addictive

Each option had their merits but eventually she settled on drugs. She needed something she could take just the once...Morphine. It slowed her thoughts to a crawl and wouldn't cause issues as it wore off.

She ran up the stairs to her room, where she pulled a panel out of the wall and extracted a small blue pill with "15" on one side and "M" on the other. Take it now, get a cab to work, have it start to wear off around 2pm. Should create the desired effect without rendering me incompetent.

She grabbed a glass of water and swallowed down the tablet. Before her brain was slowed to treacle, she grabbed some cash and slipped into a flannel shirt to cover her arm, despite it being the middle of summer.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs she felt the morphine beginning to take effect.

Trying not to stumble, she yanked open her front door and stepped into the morning air. She was getting drowsy as she hailed a cab and hauled herself inside, barely comprehensible when telling the driver her destination.

Fifteen minutes later the cab pulled up in front of St. Bart's hospital. Anna payed the driver and staggered out into the sunny morning. She walked through the doors and up the stairs to her lab, a dopey smile on her face as the morphine began hitting with full force.

She wandered into the room, frowning slightly when she saw the familiar figure once again staring down a microscope.

"Helloooo Sherlock!" she drawled joyfully.

"What is it?" he question, standing up and walking over to the grinning scientist.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh stop it, you can't lie to me, especially not in your current state. What are you on and what happened? You've been clean for months, you wouldn't break that for no reason."

"15mg of Morphine." she answered, scowling, "And...I messed up. I scared Molly, Greg, and John last night and I completed fucked up." She sighed, "Look, I'm just gonna try to get some sleep this morning, John's coming over at some point and I need to make sure he can't tell I'm high."

"He'll notice." Sherlock stated, "He is a doctor, he'll know. And if I'm correct about what occurred last night he'll be on high alert for it anyway. No use trying to hide it."

Anna groaned at that. Why does he always, ALWAYS, have to be right? She flopped into the seat in front of her desktop and clicked the mouse a few times.

"Sooooo," she said, "I'm probably not able to do any research right now so what should we do for fun until John gets here in a few hours. We could study the effects of morphine on the mind of the great Sherlock Holmes, might be interesting."

"I'm working," he replied, "I'd rather not be high as I do so. I would suggest we talk about what caused you to break your streak but discussing emotions is not something that particularly interests me; I really should tell Lestrade about this but I'll leave that to John."

Anna simply sighed and accepted her inevitable fate; Lestrade was going to find out she was using again, confront her, and then give up on trying to convince her to get help. It happened every single time and that wouldn't change. Nobody would understand why she did what she did… Except maybe Sherlock, but Sherlock wasn't exactly a touchy-feely guy.

With the Morphine still numbing her thoughts, Anna drifted into a peaceful sleep for the first time in weeks. No pain, no depression, no Alex…

1:54pm, John's POV

He checked his watch as he stepped into the quiet lab with a satchel slung over one shoulder, holding a simple first aid kit inside it. As he walked further into the lab he noticed the slumped over biologist and audibly exhaled as a realisation washed over him. Hallelujah, he thought, She's high! Back to square one, I suppose.

As he moved closer he noticed the hunched over detective a few meters away. Well now I know where he's been going every morning.

"Afternoon, Sherlock." he muttered, looking at the ceiling.

"Afternoon, John." Sherlock replied with a clipped tone.

"Right," he said after a few seconds, "Anna? Anna, you've gotta wake up now. Yep, that's it, back to the real world, come on."

"Heeeey John," she murmured sleepily, "So great to see you just after my lovely, drug fueled nap."

"15mg of Morphine, long release pill." Sherlock said suddenly, still not looking away from his experiment.

"Thanks for that, Sherlock." Anna said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "That was super helpful, I couldn't be more fuckin' grateful."

John began examining her, looking for any sign of an overdose.

"Dude," Anna exclaimed, batting his hand away, "I'm clearly not overdosing. It was 15mg, I didn't even crush the pill. Just do what you came here to do and check my bloody arm."

She held her arm out for him to look at. John hesitated for a moment before carefully taking off the dressing and checking for indicators it may have become infected. When no obvious issue presented itself, he cleaned the wound and rewrapped her left arm before stepping back.

"I will have to tell Greg about this, ya know." John said.

"Of course I know," she replied, irritated, "I'm high, not out of my mind. Tell Lestrade whatever you feel you need to and I'll be sure to prepare tea for him back at my flat as well as making sure to be suitably intoxicated to discuss my feelings. Ba-bye now!"

John turned on his heel and walked out, trying with all his heart not to scream with frustration. She's almost as bad as Sherlock...Almost.

Anna's POV

"I think that went pretty well, don't you?" she questioned, turning towards Sherlock, who had finally looked up from the blood sample he was investigating.

"Not in the slightest." he replied.

"Oh come on! Humour me, won't you?"

Just as she was about to turn back to her computer, her phone buzzed on the counter. She picked it up and glanced at the name that presented itself. "Greg's work number: Good luck" Sometimes past me knows exactly what she's talking about… She pressed the green button, and put the device up to her ear.

"He seriously already told you?" She said into the microphone.

"Who told me what?" Greg's voice came crackling through the speaker.

"Errrrr, you'll find out soon enough. Anyway, what do you want?"

"Anna… It's about Alex."

Daaaaamn that cliff hanger tho! Please do review this chapter as it would help me immensely with ones to come. DFTBA!