I'm back :)

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...Things were not okay.

Oh God no, they weren't okay.

Sherlock Holmes was missing. Vanished without a trace.

Gone.

Nobody had any clue as to where he was either.

Mrs. Hudson was at her sister's house out in the country and hadn't been at Baker Street in days. When questioned, she reported him acting a bit out of the ordinary, so abnormal, in fact, that she'd considered phoning me.

Molly had no clue where he was, he hadn't been dropping by the morgue recently. She hadn't seen him in a solid two weeks and was starting to worry.

Mycroft couldn't even be reached, too busy with the raging political scene and the Korean elections. It's not like he would know where Sherlock was either. If he'd know about anything going on, he would have told me.

Nobody knew anything.

In the end, Lestrade sent in a few selected member of his team search the apartment, off the books, of course. Even Anderson was there.

Another drugs bust, just to be sure.

But this wasn't like the old days when Lestrade would hold the busts just to piss Sherlock off. It wasn't to get some withheld criminal evidence off him. It didn't go on for an hour before they gave up and left before Sherlock started a screaming match.

They actually found something this time.

It took a while, considering how well it was hidden, but they found it. Sherlock's stash.

Anderson had just been walking across the room when he tripped over the corner of the rug, revealing a suspicious floorboard, which upon being pulled up, revealed a box.

And the box was full of drugs. Full of vials and packets of powder and capped syringes and lighters and burnt knew where he was now, even if we didn't know exactly knew what he was doing.

Sherlock was somewhere on the streets of London, high as a kite. Maybe in some damp, rat-infested alley. Maybe in some decrepit old crack house. Maybe under a bridge. Anywhere.

He could be anywhere in this whole entire city, and we still couldn't reach Mycroft, the one person that might be able to help.

As much as it pained me to admit it, we needed Mycroft, even if this would inevitably end with Sherlock locked away for God knows how long.

Lestrade and I couldn't do this alone.

We need Mycroft's surveillance, we need his men out looking for Sherlock.

Just like the last time this happened.

Lestrade had been through this before, twice actually. Long before I'd come around, long before Sherlock had settled down at Baker Street and pledged himself to sobriety when I found out about his old habits.

No, this was when Sherlock drifted through London, vacillating between sleeping rough in parks and scrounging up enough cash for boarding houses with rent by the week. He drifted because he didn't want to be found by Mycroft, didn't want to be forced back into rehab where he'd be strapped to a bed and force-fed medications.

But then Lestrade had come along. Given him cases, given him the chance nobody had given him before. He'd saved Sherlock by giving him an incentive to stay clean and agreed to help him through the horrible withdrawals when he relapsed. Everything would seem fine for a while.

Sherlock would be doing well and Lestrade wouldn't suspect anything, already knowing what Sherlock was like when he was using. New cases would excite the mad man, and years-old cold cases would be enough to placate him during London's criminal dry spells.

But then Sherlock would disappear without a word from his current address. Gone without a trace, just like right now. The first time, Lestrade had found him while doing a routine drug raid with Scotland Yard, barely recognizable amongst the other stick-thin, bedraggled bodies.

That particular vanishing act landed him in rehab once again, where his freedoms were taken away and he was forced to unlock his mind to the therapist's cold probing.

The next time was worse though.

Sherlock vanished just the same, without a word or a clue as to where he might be.

They searched in vain, but each den bust came up futile, even the locations he'd always seemed to frequent.

Months went by, and for a while they never thought they would find him alive again. Lestrade always expected Sherlock to show up at his next crime scene, but instead under the sheet. Frozen. Starved. Yet another OD victim. Stabbing victim. Shooting victim. Drug deal gone wrong. A water-bloated corpse that had fallen into the Thames.

But nothing happened.

Until they got a phone call from a hospital.

Sherlock had been brought in by two young cops, who'd found him OD'd in an alley near a dingy shipyard.

He'd died, actually legally died. His heart had stopped, his body too weak and malnourished to fight anymore. But they'd brought him back and managed to ID him from his previous hospital stays.

And so began a hell that Lestrade could never have expected. It was far worse than his own experiences with a detoxing Sherlock, so much worse than the drugged up shell strapped to a bed. It had been terrifying, not knowing if Sherlock would even make it through. He was underweight, almost shockingly so, bones protruding grotesquely. He was injured and ill, lungs swimming in fluid for a bad case of pneumonia, only aggravated by the cold, rainy London weather. It was worse than the last time, it seemed like he was really broken down psychically and that the invincible detective would never recover.

But he recovered, agains all odds. Made it out of the hospital, made it to rehab, and somehow even making it out of there. And he found me. And I saved him even though I only now fully understand the extent. I was kept in the dark about his habits for so long. The first drug's bust and the several subsequent ones were enough to convince me there was something going on, but Lestrade and Mycroft both remained tight-lipped. They assured me that Sherlock would tell me when he felt like it.

And he did, quiet forwardly, like it was no big deal.

No big deal that he'd basically killed himself. No big deal that he'd thrown away his life and his mind for nothing.

I'm sure he would think it was no big deal that he was missing now, that he'd left me alone again.

He was important to me, really truly important and he never seemed to believe me. He'd saved me too, though I never really admitted it to him.

I wish I had. I wish he knew how much he meant to me. I still need him, I needed him to know that I still cared.

Maybe I would get a chance still. Maybe it would be like the first time around.

Maybe we would find him after a few weeks of searching, healthy enough if a bit rough around the edges. Maybe he would still be okay. Maybe a trip to rehab and the assurance that he still mattered would be enough to pull him back into the land of the living.

But then again, maybe not.

Maybe I'm too late. Maybe it will be like the second time. Maybe he would OD and maybe it would be too much this time. Maybe he won't get lucky. Maybe I won't get lucky.

I might not get a chance to apologize for leaving him alone and moving on. He might be gone already. I am terrified.

Okay, so this new document manager is a bitch to deal with, especially for a story with such short lines :P

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed this and drop me a review if you did!

I hope to be back around soon with more! Perhaps a chapter from Sherlock POV?!