Chapter 3

"BETH!" Paul's voice echoed through the house and she cringed at the sound.

She had just arrived back with Felix in tow after getting breakfast for them all, not even fully crossing the threshold inside before hearing the bellow. She gestured to her foster brother to remain in the kitchen while she investigated the yell. The sight she was greeted with when she made it to the doorway of her bedroom had an amused smile spreading across her face and laughter bubbling up her throat before she could stop it.

Paul was sitting on the floor shirtless, clutching the back of his head in pain. He had a thin blanket twisted around his legs uncomfortably. Sarah was curled up peacefully in the bed, wrapped up in the warm duvet and clutching Beth's pillow to her head.

"She just came out of nowhere and pushed me off!" Paul whined and Beth realized he must have hit his head on the bedside table on the way down.

"Okay? What am I supposed to do about it now?"

"Make her move!" he exclaimed childishly and pouted up at her. "I was going to sleep for another half hour before she barreled in here."

"Shut up, both of you," Sarah grumbled. "The bloody couch is lumpy as shit and I'm exhausted."

Paul glared up at her form, still not having moved from the floor. Beth shrugged down at him without sympathy. "Well you're up now and I've got breakfast so suck it up."

The sharp look she gave him was enough to make sure he didn't argue. Paul lifted himself off the floor and made his way out of the room, the wafting smell of breakfast enough to sooth his previous upset. Beth eyed her sister cautiously and circled around the bed so they were facing each other. Sarah's eyes were wide open and she knelt down slowly to lock their gazes.

"There's food out there for you, too," she offered and waited with baited breath to see what kind of response she'd get from Sarah. She knew from firsthand experience that withdrawal from cocaine often resulted in depression and anger. The kind of attitude she'd get from her sister this morning was completely unpredictable.

"I'm not hungry," Sarah responded evenly and closed her eyes, hoping Beth would get the message and leave her alone. She was so goddamn tired she wanted to scream. Just trying to keep her eyes open for half a minute to talk to her sister was excruciating. All she wanted to do was sleep for the rest of her life, but even then she wasn't entirely sure if the weight of exhaustion would lift. After all, she had successfully slept through the night on the shitty pull out couch, only to awake this morning more tired than she was the night before.

"Okay, I'll set a plate aside just in case you are later on," Beth continued and Sarah felt a hand lay on her shoulder gently. She waited for Beth to finish whatever shit she needed to say. "Felix is here to see you. He brought the stuff you had in his flat with him."

Sarah processed the words but didn't bother dignifying them with a response. She'd think Beth could easily see that she wasn't exactly up for a family visit right now.

"Sarah?" Beth questioned when silence met her ears and Sarah's closed eyes didn't even flinch.

"I heard you, Beth!" she grumbled loudly and tossed over to face the opposite direction of her twin. "I don't care! I'm too bloody tired for this shite."

Beth nodded even though her sister wouldn't see it and squeezed her shoulder gently. "Alright, I'll let you sleep then. If you need anything let me know."

Once again, there was no response and Beth moved out of the bedroom quietly. She closed the door behind her and joined Felix and Paul at the kitchen table. They both looked at her with worry in their eyes, Paul's much more masked than her foster brother's.

"She's just really tired," Beth shrugged out an explanation and took a seat at the table. She dragged the bag of food toward her and fished out the bagel she knew was waiting for her. Shoving a piece in her mouth as soon as it was unwrapped, she looked questioningly at both men who still had their eyes on her warily. "What?"

"Are you sure she's just tired?" Paul spoke first.

"Well, no. She's going through cocaine withdrawal, obviously. She's exhausted and depressed because her body and brain are trying to get back to some semblance of normal after being fucked on drugs for the last year."

"Right," Paul muttered and focused back on his food, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

Felix obviously understood the situation a little more intimately than Paul did. He was at least present for Sarah's first go at getting clean, although Mrs S sheltered a lot of it from him because he was only a kid at the time. He knew enough about it from what he saw at the time and what he learned as he got older to know what a stupid question was and to not ask them, especially to Beth.

If there was one thing true about his foster sister, it was that she is incredibly protective of her brother and sister. The limits to which she would go to help him and Sarah and keep them safe were endless. Especially when they were in a vulnerable state like Sarah currently found herself, Beth could get extremely defensive very quickly. Even the slightest thing could set her off into over-protective mode – such as a stupid question from her boyfriend.

For this reason, Felix had found it both ironic and amusing when Beth announced she was going to become a police officer. She had basically dedicated her entire life to looking out for her siblings and now she was volunteering to do it for an entire city of people she had never met. Unlike Sarah, he respected Beth even more when he found out her decision, knowing that she would make an excellent addition to the police force.

Although an amazing cop and highly dedicated to her job, he knew Beth would always be more so to her brother and sister. She would put them before her job and even the law without a second thought if it meant keeping them out of harm's way. Which is why she's willingly taking time off work to take care of her sister in need. There's no one he would trust Sarah's care right now to more than Beth, but it didn't stop him from experiencing a burning urgency to be near Sarah and take care of her as well. It was even stronger now considering he had only been able to sit by helplessly the first time she battled with drugs.

"How was she last night?" he asked risking getting bit by Beth's protectiveness, he was too anxious to find out how Sarah was doing to care. After all, he had grown up with Beth and he could bite her right back if he had to.

Beth looked at her younger brother softly, like she knew exactly what kind of thoughts had just been flying through his head. "Not too bad. She ate like a pig and then crashed while we were watching a movie."

"Just sounds like typical Sarah," Felix joked and Beth laughed softly in agreement. Obviously, both siblings aware that Sarah's behaviour was not her typical self and motivated by a much darker demon that she was in the beginnings of battling out of her body.

The unspoken knowledge had them both quieting down and sinking into their thoughts. Most of them echoing each other's, focused on the well-being of their sister and brainstorming how to make her withdrawal as easy as possible on her.

"I swear to God Fee, if you wake her up I'll kill you," Beth threatened her brother when he let out a less than quiet laugh at the television.

Felix looked at her apologetically and kept his mouth clamped shut. He figured it was a safe bet that Sarah wouldn't be waking anytime soon but he didn't bother arguing with Beth at the moment.

After breakfast, Paul had announced he was going out for the day to give the three siblings some time alone with each other. Beth and Felix had almost immediately agreed upon settling in Beth's king size bed with Sarah and watching movies together for the day. However, Sarah was dead asleep when they entered the room and knowing how badly her body needed the rest, they decided to not wake her up. Especially considering how difficult it could be for recovering addicts to sleep during withdrawal sometimes, they didn't want to disturb her. So far, aside from turning over every now and then Sarah had practically been sleeping like a dead person.

Beth looked down at her sister after her brother's outburst and frowned at the sight of her body shaking slightly. There were chills going down Sarah's arm and Beth gently moved the covers over her as much as she could. When she saw that her sister's shaking did not die down, she took to rubbing Sarah's back and arms soothingly in hopes of calming the quaking.

She remembered the first time around, the chills were the worst part for Sarah. Beth had asked her about them once after she was clean and her sister's description of the agonizing pain they brought along was enough to make her cringe.

Felix and Beth snapped their necks down to their sister when she emitted a low groan. Felix muted the TV while Beth continued to try to warm her twin up. They watched Sarah blink her eyes open and stare up at both of them.

"Hey sis, how ya feeling?" Felix questioned softly and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder when she sat up in the bed.

"Like shit," she groaned and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She shook her head to herself in defeat and with a cracking voice admitted, "All I wanna do is snort a line righ' now."

They watched the tears well up in their strong sister's eyes. Both siblings could probably list all the instances in which they saw Sarah cry through the years, and seeing it come about once again because of drugs had them aching. They wanted so badly to help her but knew that this was a battle Sarah would have to fight on her own, no matter how much they wanted to carry the weight for her.

"You can fight it, Sar," Beth encouraged throatily. "You've beat this shit before and you can do it again. Focus on Kira."

Sarah nodded and tried to exhale calmly but her breath hitched halfway and she sputtered out the remaining air in her lungs. "I'm so sorry," she confessed and let out a half sob. "I don't deserve either of you guys."

"Bollocks," Felix scoffed and forced Sarah to meet his gaze. "You're the best sister we could ever ask for, alright? If anything we don't deserve you."

"He's right, Sarah. You deserve us and a shit ton more, okay? You've always done anything for Fee and I, no questions asked and this is us doing anything for you. You're not gonna go through this shit alone."

She sniffed as both her siblings wrapped their arms tightly around her. It was a display of love and support, but also their way of blocking the world out; of protecting their unbelievably strong sister from being beat down any further by the world. The gesture was one of solidarity that confirmed Beth's statement for Sarah. She had already known she wasn't going to be alone through the entire ordeal but actually seeing and hearing it in the moment gave her hope that she could come out on the other side still intact. Last time that had not been the case. She had been so adamant on pushing everyone as far away from her as she could that she made it through withdrawal completely shattered, having to pick up the pieces of herself in complete solitude. Sorting her life out after the fact all alone was almost as difficult as the withdrawal itself.

"I'm still sorry. I'm so bloody stupid for getting mixed up in this shite again," she lamented sadly. "I was really doin good, ya know? Then Vic came along and I just wanted so bad to have a little fun for a while. I thought I could handle doin' a line or two, but now I'm here and feel like dyin' so I guess I couldn't."

Beth shook her head and sighed heavily. "Shut up already, dipshit. We don't want to hear your apologies, alright? You made a really shitty choice and now you're paying for it. The only person who you owe an apology to is Kira. This shit is just like anything else the three of us have been through together, understand? We stick by each other no matter what, no questions asked."

Sarah nodded in response. She already knew everything Beth had said, but it helped to have it reinforced. The three of them had always been each other's biggest support system no matter what the circumstances. She knew her siblings would stand by her side through this withdrawal and whatever else was thrown her way but right now she really didn't feel like she deserved it. Getting mixed up with coke again was probably the most fucked up thing she had ever done – and that's saying something – finally returning home to the support of her brother and sister didn't feel right. The remorse and guilt at leaving her entire family behind for so long in favour of drugs made her sick.

Wait, maybe it wasn't the guilt that was making her feel so sick because the churning in her empty stomach felt awfully real as she leapt over Beth's legs and bolted for the bathroom. She heaved into the porcelain bowl, only bile making an appearance up her throat. She realized then that she had spent so much time sleeping that she hadn't eaten since the previous evening and it was now mid-afternoon.

She was vaguely aware of another body flopping onto the floor behind her and rubbing her back in comfort. Her body was too busy convulsing with the force of her gagging to process which of her siblings it actually was. Several minutes passed before the nausea seemed to have passed and she sat back up, seeing that Felix was the one with her. He already had a damp cloth in his hand and wiped the sweat off her forehead, pushing the matted hair back with it as well.

"You okay?" he asked hesitantly, hand still on her back gently.

"Yeah, think so. Caught me off guard s'all," she explained and inhaled deeply to make sure that she really was through with the heaving.

"You should probably eat something, yeah?"

"Yeah," Sarah agreed and moved to stand up. Seeing what she was thinking, Felix got up much faster and quickly had his arm around her waist to help her move slowly to her feet. He dropped a loving kiss on the side of her head as they walked side by side out to the kitchen.

Beth and a newly home Paul were already there. Beth was quickly piling food onto a plate for her sister and setting it down in front of one of the stools at the counter. Paul observed her fragile state and red rimmed eyes carefully. "Alright Manning?"

She shrugged in response and managed to bark out a short laugh. "Feel like shite, man."

"Getting something into your stomach might help a bit," Beth commented and gave her sister a stern look to ingest the food in front of her.

"The first forty eight hours is supposed to be the worst, right?" Paul asked, he had read up more on cocaine withdrawal but still wanted to fact check. "That means you're half way through the toughest part."

"Hopefully," Sarah garbled out between bites of food.

"It's different for everyone," Beth tacked on an explanation. "The worst part usually is the first two or three days but it's still tough even after a couple weeks. We just have to take every day in stride and we'll get through it."

That would be the key to getting Sarah clean – taking the withdrawal process day by day. They each knew that some days would be better than others for her and they'd lean on each other to get through both the good and the bad. As a family unit, Sarah, Beth, and Felix could conquer the world together. Even Paul, despite his shortcomings and issues with all three of them on some days would be an important member of their group. This would be another bump in the road that they'd get through together, just like they had been doing for their entire lives.