AN: I still own nothing. I'd also like to give credit to my awesome friend who shall remain anon, who is doing the RP that has inspired this fic. Unbetaed. Song is Beautiful by Mariah Carrey.

Chapter 2: Beautiful

I regained the ability to hear first. Then my sense of smell, then taste, and finally touch. My eyes were shut, so I couldn't tell when I regained my sight. But I felt oddly disconnected, as if my body and my mind were two separate entities. Is this heaven? I thought, thinking that if it was, it was a sore disappointment from the pearly gates one expected. Also, my throat felt sore. Wouldn't I have no pain if I were dead?

Then I noticed a steady beeping noise and the scent of antiseptic. The cloth I felt against my skin was thin and itchy. A hospital. I was in a hospital. Someone had found me and cut me down before I had asphyxiated completely. Apparently my weight wasn't great enough to cause my neck to snap.

My first emotion at this realization was disappointment. I had failed even at killing myself. Great. Just great. I pried my eyes open, sure that the only person who'd be there would be a nameless nurse and Margo, my girlfriend. So you can understand my surprise when I saw not only Margo, but Dad as well, the both of them sitting in decidedly uncomfortable looking hospital chairs.

"Vicky, don't you DARE ever do that to me again!" Margo nearly sobbed, throwing herself at me as soon as she noticed I was awake. Obviously she'd been pretty badly hurt by my attempted suicide, because she usually wasn't this huggy. I hugged her the best I could while lying on a hospital bed, one hand tethered by an IV.

"I share the sentiment. When I found you, I... I couldn't think," this statement gave me pause. My dad's always thinking, that's why he can't sleep very well, since he's incapable of shutting off his brain. To think that finding me near death made his mind skitter to a halt... well to be honest, it shocked me. At that point I didn't think that anyone really cared whether I lived or died. Mary's words had affected me more than I wanted to admit, even to myself.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, closing my eyes in shame. Had I really been that thoughtless, that selfish, to try to kill myself? My family wasn't that big, and it hurt that John apparently didn't care enough to come and visit me, but I had dad and I had Margo, which was nice.

"You don't have to apologize, girlfriend-of-mine," Margo whispered somewhere near my ear, since we were still hugging, "s'not your fault that the Monster got a hold of you." The Monster was the name she gave my depression. She claimed it was a beast, a Monster that took parts of me away.

My dad, who was sitting near the foot of the bed, looked up at me and said, "I fear you may have inherited the Holmes trait of mental illness. Or at the very least the Holmes trait of attracting bullies," he said ruefully.

I answered as Margo pulled herself off the bed, back to her chair. As she's a bit shorter than me, this took a great deal of shuffling around. "You found the USB."

"Yes. As I was waiting for the ambulance, I noticed near the chair," he pulled the flash drive out of a pocket and showed it to me. He gestured as if to give it to me, but I shook my head. Bad associations and all that.

At that moment I noticed that Margo looked like she's missed a good amount of sleep. Dad looked the same as normal, but was projecting more emotion than usual for him in public spaces.

"How long was I out?" I asked, looking at Sherlock for the answer.

"One day. They kept you sedated for fear you'd try to harm yourself," this made sense. Since, in retrospect, I hadn't really been thinking rationally at the time I attempted suicide, I wasn't sure how I'd react if I'd woken soon after. Though I don't remember dreaming in my drugged sleep, I'm sure my mind was able to sort itself out.

"Where's John?" I half-dreaded the answer, but I needed to know.

Margo suddenly looked murderous, and Sherlock just looked sad. "Mary picked up, and forced me not to tell him. She said that I was probably lying to try to drive them apart."

Thinking about John and Mary's vacation reminded me of something. I cursed myself and whatever drugs I was on for my mental slowness. "Margo, aren't you supposed to be going back to the States today?" I asked. If I'd been out for a day, and today was Monday, then she was supposed to be on a plain flying back.

"You think that I'd go with you trying to kill yourself? Ye of little faith." I laughed, happy that I had these two. If I'd woken up alone, I don't know how I would have reacted. My mood had rocketed back up again, but it might have stayed down if they hadn't been there. John's absence was a bit of a dampener, but other than that, I was happy. Of course, the drugs helped.

"Thank you for being here, dad, Margo-the-fantastic-girlfriend," my mood turned somber as I added, "I'm sorry you had to find me dad," turning to him. I hoped he'd forgive me for having to put him through that.

"I'm glad I found you Victoria. It would have been horrible to lose you. Do you really think that John and I will be together?" Ah yes, the other part of my note. Now to deal with dunderhead numero uno.

"Yes. Mary's driving her relationship into the ground. She's being a crazy clingy bitch, and the jealously likely won't help. Also John's head over heals in love with you. He's just scared of loving you, cause of the whole you know, he lost you once thing," I said, referring to his "suicide".

Oddly enough, we hadn't mentioned his false death until then. "Yes, I do hope he forgives me."

"Don't worry, dad, he already has. I could see that when you came back. He just needs time, as do you. You two dunderheads will be happy, mark my words," an odd conversation to have in a hospital room, after nearly killing myself, I know. It's not like my issues were over, it's just at the moment my mood was on the "happy" side of the pendulum swing. If you don't believe me, I can show you the scars that are issue of when it swings in the opposite direction. But at this point, that wasn't important. What was important was that two of the people closest to me had spent time with me.

"Word game?" I asked after a few seconds. If I was going to be bored in a hospital room for another 36 hours, I might as well do something to try to keep my mood on the happy side.

"Rhyming journeys?" Sherlock asked hopefully. That's one of the ones he's good at.

"Sure, as long as you don't use obscure Turkish villages that no one's heard of except you and the inhabitants."

"Fine," he said, annoyed.

"I won't use American towns no one's heard of," Margo promised, pouting.

"Oh, it's fine if you do it. You're fantastic. He's my dad."

AN: I give credit to my awesome friend, who helped me figure out the name for Victoria's girlfriend during our RP. A warning, there will be a timeskip between this chapter and the next. About three years or so.