A/N: Wow. I have no idea if anyone is still reading this, or wants to, but I found my Fanfiction account today and was suddenly inspired to try and finish this, my last Work-In-Progress! I welcome new readers, I'm about three years out of date with the Mediator board, but I'd love to finish this. Call it procrastination, call it desperation, but if you read, please review!

"Patient in a stable condition, hydration levels restored…"

As I came to, the first thing I heard besides the pounding heartbeat in my temple was a robotic beeping to my left. I blinked, groggy, and tried to focus on the scene in front of me. Three figures, their outlines blurry, the first I recognised to be –

"Paul!"

I reached blindly for him, and a sharp tug at the skin on my hand drew my attention to an IV plugged into my vein. Ouch.

"Hey, beautiful," he said, and his face came into focus as he crouched at my bedside. "How are you feeling?" I swallowed, my throat dry and scratchy.

"I'm… what happened?" I rubbed my face with my free hand and turned my attention to the other two people in the room. My mother, pale and anxious, with a wan smile plastered on her lips, and another man, whose tall and authoritative figure was clothed by a white lab coat. "Who are you?"

"Susie, you're not well," my mother said, approaching the foot of my bed and wrapping her hands around the bedstead. "The doctors found traces of amphetamines in your system-"

Wait, what?

"You're self-medicating, Suze," Paul said, plainly, squeezing my fingers forcefully. "We know that Kelly's death affected you deeply, but we had no idea it had come to this-"

"I am not-"

"Dr. West is here to help you," my mother continued, and gestured to the man in the white coat, who nodded curtly. "He can help you overcome your addiction-"

"I don't have an addiction!" I cried, struggling to sit up in bed, my weak body groaning at the effort. "I didn't even…" Suddenly, the image of my dressing room, and those white pills came flooding back. "Paul! Paul gave me those pills! He told me-"

"You're confused, Susie," he said, with a look of mock sympathy on his lips and something else glittering in his eyes. "The drugs are messing with your recall. Obviously, the label is disappointed to have cancelled the concert but their main concern is that our best artist is up and well again…"

I spluttered, trying to force words out, but nothing happened. All three faces were centred on me, and I drew in a deep breath, helpless. I hadn't taken those pills purposefully, I knew it. I knew it.But who else would believe me?

Morningside Retreat had the name of a nursing home, but there was nothing nurturing or home-like about it. It was cold and clinical, with whitewashed walls and electric lighting and grey Roman blinds at every window. Every patient, including myself, was given a strict schedule punishable by removal of patient privileges, like cellphone or Internet privileges, and a thick plastic bracelet that meant that everyone knew everything about you just by grabbing your wrist. Or in my case, everyone knew what the label was peddling about me – a latent drug addiction, mostly opiates, brought on by the violent suicide of my best friend three months previously. I had spent months keeping silent about Kelly's death – so not my best friend – and now everybody wanted to talk about it. Some days the situation was so surreal I had to sit down on my hard, rock-like mattress just to get my head around it.

But just because I knew the details of my situation, I didn't know the reasons for it. I knew that I didn't have an addiction, but my mother was so distraught by the results of my stomach pumping that she was convinced I had to seek help immediately, and something in Paul's expression – and the reminder he'd given me later about the terms of my contract – told me I'd regret fighting it. I couldn't believe I'd thought he loved me, or at least wanted to be with me. He had imprisoned me.

I sat now in my room, wedging my body in the narrow window seat and staring at the bleak coastline, as I had done every day for three months. I had group therapy, during which time I tried to ignore the stares I got from the rest of the patients, and individual therapy with Dr. West, when I mostly remained silent and listened the repetitive pleas for me to admit to my "problem", but for an hour a day I was allowed "reflection" time, which was what I was doing now, wondering just how my life had got so out of control.

"Hey!"

I craned my neck to see my over-perky, over-chirpy roommate, Heather, bound through the door. For someone who had tried to commit suicide over a break-up, she was surprisingly, annoyingly, chipper. All the damn time.

"Hi," I murmured, as she settled on her bed and flipped through a magazine. I bristled; when I first arrived at Morningside I'd been banned from reading any kind of tabloid press after I'd flipped out on my doctors upon spotting a headline about my 'condition', and had had to be sedated. Part of me was itching to snatch the rag from her hands, but I restrained myself. Still, I couldn't help but ask.

"Anything good in there?"

Heather looked up. "You mean, anything about you." She flipped a few more pages. "Nah. Sorry. This is a few weeks old, though. You never know, someone might be spreading a new rumour about you this week." I sighed. I'd been everything from bipolar to carrying Paul's secret love child in the last few months.

"O.K, thanks."

I had just refocused my gaze on a seagull stalking the gravel path outside the window when there was a knock on the door. Michaela, one of the centre's administrative assistants, peered in anxiously. "Suze?" she asked. "You have a visitor." My forehead crinkled in confusion. The only visitor I ever had was my mother, who checked in every week to make sure I wasn't 'relapsing' and to make sure I was eating my green vegetables. Paul never contacted me; the only time I was ever reminded that he still knew I existed was when his assistant called to update me on album sales, and remind me I was still contractually obligated to tour as soon as I completed my programme.

I stood up, and Heather grinned at me. "Oh," she said, as I passed on my way to the door. "That's who the guy in reception is. He's cute!" Cute?

I followed Michaela down the corridor and into reception. At first the light from the artificial skylight was so blinding I couldn't focus, but then I noticed the figure sat on the hard leather sofa. And my stomach did a little somersault.

"Jesse?"

If I'd forgotten how beautiful he was, I was instantly reminded as he stood up to greet me – tall, olive-skinned and broad-shouldered, I couldn't blame Heather for ogling. But as I got closer, I noticed he didn't have the glow about him that he normally did. Dark circles sagged below his eyes and his t-shirt hung off his ribs as if he had lost weight.

"Hi, querida," he said, and his voice sounded tired, too. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

-x-

We sat now, on one of the few benches Morningside had placed in the "visitors' garden", which was so close to the sea that when the tide was in you got a face full of spray. Neither of us had said anything since he had stood up in reception; Michaela had simply ushered us outside and then left us to our own devices. Finally, I couldn't take the stilted silence any longer.

"Jesse, what did you mean, 'sorry I'm so late'?" He shifted guiltily in his seat.

"I heard about your overdose," he replied, avoiding my gaze. "But Marta's baby, he got sick on the day that I found out, and I've been working overtime ever since to cover the hospital bills, and-"

"He's sick? Is he O.K?" Jesse's shoulders sagged with the force of his sigh.

"He'll get there," he answered, and I felt so saddened by the emptiness of his reply that I refrained from pressing any further. "But you have to know, I would have been here the second you arrived if I could have. Susannah, I know we had lost contact after Kelly's death, but I had no idea it had affected you so deeply-"

I stood up, suddenly, and walked away from the bench. Jesse stopped speaking in surprise. "Querida, are you O.K?"

"No," I said, through gritted teeth. "No, I'm not O.K." I spun around to face him. "Jesse, I don't have an addiction. Paul made the whole thing up, after he tricked me into taking drugs at my birthday concert." Jesse's eyes widened.

"Hijo de puta," he whispered, and he stood up to face me. "Susannah, you have to tell the truth!"

"How could I?" I shot back. "No-one would believe me, not even my own mother believes me. Paul's spun this whole story, saying how despondent I've been since Kelly's death – and it's true, I have been withdrawn, I have been depressed! But not on drugs, for God's sake!" I sank back down on the bench and put my head in my hands. "I'm such an idiot. I thought he loved me." I felt Jesse tighten beside me, and was suddenly reminded of our passionate confrontation in the car all those months ago. "I just have no idea why he would do this to me."

Jesse grimaced, and pulled something out of his pocket. "I do," he replied, and handed it to me. It was a page torn out of a newspaper, folded in half, and in half again. I stared at this contraband, and smiled, revelling in the taboo. "That is why I'm here," he continued. "You won't be smiling once you read it."

I unfolded the article, and swallowed heavily before I began to read.

MOVING ON: PAUL SLATER FINDS NEXT BIG THING

Slater, 22, takes newly-signed Lola Byrne out for a romantic lunch. But what about Suze Simon?

Below the headline there was a photo of this girl, this Lola. She was blonde, she was beautiful, she was everything I wasn't. My heart sank. And then there was a photo of Paul… kissing her on the mouth. My heart sank lower.

"Oh, my God," I muttered, and threw the article aside.

"He wanted you out of the way," Jesse affirmed, as I tried to make sense of the anger swimming round my head. "I guess so he could have more time for this…Lola." The way he said her name was like it tasted bad in his mouth.

"He used me," I stammered, and could feel my eyes filling with tears. "He used me!"

"We can get him for this, Susannah," Jesse said, and he placed two hands on my shoulders to force me to look at him. "We can make him pay for everything he's done to you… and to Kelly." I sat for a while, my head pounding with fury, with confusion, with heartbreak. Then, after a while, my breathing slowed, and I met his gaze again.

"O.K," I said, as I took his hand in mine. "Let's do it."