AN: Warnings for mild swearing, but in the situation, it was unavoidable. Thanks to everyone who's favourited, followed and/or reviewed this story, you're the best! Thanks also to everyone's who's reading, I'd always love to hear feedback to see if the story's going in the right direction or not, and what your thoughts are in general :)

"No Sherlock."

"Don't be ridiculous Lestrade."

"I'm not. It's not going to happen Sherlock."

"You're acting like a child."

"Well there's the pot calling the kettle black!"

"My kettle's silver."

"That's beside the point!" Lestrade yelled angrily at the petulant child sitting across from him. Sherlock's face was calm but flat, his legs crossed and his fingers steepled on the arms of his only chair that he was sat in. His face barely changed expression as he shot words back at Lestrade, bickering.

"It's not beside the point; if the kettle is black, it is a sign of hypocrisy. My kettle, though, is silver."

Greg rubbed a hand across his face slowly, shutting his eyes and breathing deeply. Greg could swear he was going greyer much faster in these past few months. He knew why that was.

"Sherlock, this is final. I'm not letting you into that crime scene, and you are going on no cases until you agree to go cold turkey on the drugs."

"Well then Inspector, we have a problem."

"Yes, we do."

Sherlock furrowed his brow, flounced over to his violin, swiped it off its perch on the windowsill, and bit Lestrade's ears with angry, crunching sweeps of his bow.

"I'm giving you a choice Sherlock: drugs or cases. This discussion is over now. I'll come back tomorrow and see what you've decided."

Greg returned to next day to a pensive Sherlock, thankfully calmed down from when they'd parted last. Sherlock's phone rested on his chest as the detective lay on the floor; so engrossed in thinking that he took no notice of his visitor, even as Greg leaned over him and waved a hand in front of Sherlock's focussed and glassy eyes.

"What's this?" Lestrade started, reaching down for Sherlock's phone, guaranteeing a response.

Predictably, the detective's hand whipped to his chest to snatch the phone away from Lestrade's reach, and drawing his legs in he jumped up in one fluid motion. Greg half-chuckled; the fact that he knew how to manipulate the detective made him strangely pleased.

"Well?" Sherlock asked, turning away and putting his phone down.

"What have you decided?"

"I told you my decision yesterday."

Lestrade sat heavily on the couch and put his head in his hand. He would keep working on it. He would slowly wear Sherlock down, bit by bit. Greg was made of stronger stuff than Sherlock seemed to think. Lestrade realised that they'd been sitting in silence for a good few minutes, and eyelids slightly drooped, he languidly glanced over to Sherlock, still and with a slight frown. Outwardly, he didn't display many signs of disturbance, but Lestrade could feel anger radiating from him. It was slightly scary.

"What's happened?"

At Sherlock's sharp look with narrowed eyes, Greg continued: "C'mon. Unlike you, I'm good with emotions. Something's happened that's making you angry, so what was it?"

Sherlock considered his answer: "William's out of hospital."

Lestrade could see nothing bad about that, so was slightly confused.

"He's been taken to Manchester, to live with his aunt."

Lestrade picked up on the cold tone that Sherlock used when telling him this.

"He didn't want to go. I was visiting him, and social services arrived. They told him he was being taken away, and…he fought. He threatened to…take action. Run away, among other things."

The way the last sentence was said chilled Lestrade.

"I've been texting him; he's unhappy. He says that he's been seeing counsellors, social services…"

"It's making you unhappy? Worried?" Lestrade asked.

"I'd rather not talk about my personal feelings Lestrade. It's very dull conversation."

"But, it would be good to –"

"No Inspector, I don't think so."

Greg knew the discussion was over, so he didn't press the subject.

"Lestrade, I'm sure that without me your workload is extremely heavy with unsolved cases, and right now it's 2 pm on a Wednesday. Office hours."

Greg stood with the dismissal, knowing Sherlock just wanted to be left to his own thoughts, and bid him goodbye. There was a nervous twinge in his stomach as he shut the creaking and peeling door on the consulting detective, and knew he'd have to keep an extra close eye on him from now on.

Lestrade hadn't heard from Sherlock for a couple of days, which of course happened occasionally, so he shouldn't have been overly worried. But Sherlock hadn't been allowed on any cases while he still refused to give up the cocaine, and usually Lestrade was dropping by or shooting Sherlock a text every day, just to make sure he was still alive. However, this week Greg had been so busy and he hadn't been able to get to Sherlock's, and he was relying on texts. So when Sherlock didn't reply to Greg for three days, the worry really began to engulf him.

The last straw was when Sherlock didn't reply to a text in which Lestrade outlined a triple homicide where all the victims were found next to a smashed bust of Napoleon. Greg had been desperate to get him to respond, and he knew that finally presenting him with a case after a long cold turkey was the way. Apparently, he was wrong. Lestrade knew it was all of Sherlock's dreams rolled into one superb problem. Either Sherlock was ignoring him, or he was somehow incapacitated. And Lestrade knew for a fact it wouldn't be the former.

Greg couldn't focus on his paperwork, or the leads of the Napoleon case, and couldn't even put his mind to work after being given a cup of coffee and two cups of tea by a wonderfully obliging Donovan. He took to checking his phone every few seconds like a nervous twitch, and tried to ignore DI Gregson's gaze that he could feel boring into him.

Finally, he gave up on a response. Standing, he had made up his mind to find out where the hell Sherlock was. Usually, he wouldn't be so worried. But it was Sherlock. Sherlock, who had a cocaine habit; who wouldn't be adverse to destructive tendencies; who had no one but Lestrade and Mycroft, avoiding Mycroft at all costs; who currently had no distractions in the form of cases which was always likely to turn into a disaster; and who hadn't jumped on a triple homicide.

"Donovan, hold the fort, I'm going to see Sherlock," Lestrade informed her.

"The case?" she sighed.

"Yeah," Lestrade replied, ignoring her rolled eyes and acidic muttering, knowing fully well what she thought of consulting Sherlock.

The drive was quick; after all, Vauxhall was only across the Thames from the Yard. Lestrade pulled up to the falling-down block of flats, double-parked the cruiser, and jumped out. Letting himself into the building he approached Sherlock's flat and knocked, as he still liked to give Sherlock warning of his approach, even with a set of keys.

There was no answer, so he swung the door open himself, and felt his heart plummet to the bottom of his stomach. A nasty ill feeling firmly planted itself there. What he saw was a messier-than-usual apartment, with a box of eaten Chinese take-out and various test tubes and experiments bubbling away all over the benches. They surrounded a very still consulting detective lying flat on the floor, arms and legs skewed.

Greg ran to his side, and turned him over. He was burning, his body was slack and limp, and his face was a much whiter shade of pale than usual – indeed, his pallor made his skin match Lestrade's crisp, white work shirt.

"Shit! Sherlock! Oh God…oh my God…Jesus Christ…Sherlock! Sherlock! Can you hear me?"

You've failed him Greg, you colossal imbecile! Lestrade's mind shrieked at him. You were supposed to protect him, put him back on track, help him – and this is where he's ended up! What kind of protection is that? He had crouched by the side of the unresponsive detective, and tried not to cry. When he put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder and shook slightly, the detective's head lolled sickeningly to the side.

He had to calm his own racing heart to check for a pulse in Sherlock, and waited. He couldn't gauge one for a while, but suddenly, he found it. Weak, fluttering and intermittent, but it was there. It was sweet life flowing through Sherlock. It was damn better than feeling nothing, but Lestrade was still far from happy.

Dialling 999, he practically screeched down the phone at the operator for an ambulance. When he was told that EMTs were on their way, he turned his attention back to Sherlock. He futilely tried to calm his panicky voice.

"Sherlock, listen to me. Don't you dare die on me, all right? We're going to get you to hospital, I'm going to have you fixed up, but you're not going to die on me. I swear I'll kill you if you do. Is that understood? Please Sherlock," and added in his mind Damn my cracking voice.

He turned Sherlock over, and kept talking to him. That's all he could do at this point. Rubbing Sherlock's hand, he kept talking and talking. After again pleading to Sherlock to be all right, he gave him an extra little incentive.

"Anyway Sherlock, if you stay with me you'll be able to investigate this dastardly difficult homicide we've got on our hands."

He didn't tell Sherlock that if he lived – no not if, Greg, he will live – he would probably be in hospital for the entire duration of the case anyway. Perhaps Lestrade would bring case files to his bed.

"You'd love the case," he continued desperately. Maybe if I talk to him like normal, like it's just another day with just another case, everything will be all right. "Each of the victims was found next to a bust of Napoleon, shattered to pieces. We also just received information that another identical bust belonging to an old woman in Essex was shattered, but she was unharmed, being out of the house at the time."

He was still talking when the ambulance arrived, and followed Sherlock's stretcher into the back of the vehicle. He didn't think he was allowed there, not being family, but had wormed his way in. He didn't remember how, but that hardly mattered. Immediately the paramedics had pounced on Sherlock, and were now hooking him up to all sorts of contraptions that Lestrade had no idea what the hell were. If anything medical was ever mentioned to Greg, he just blankly nodded, having been completely lost on the first word. It was completely overwhelming for him. But he knew exactly what it was they were currently sticking into Sherlock's mouth.

"But – but he was breathing before! Has he gone downhill?" Lestrade cried in horror.

"His breathing is strained and weak, it's probably better to have a little extra help," one of the medics, an amicable girl who couldn't have been more than 25, told him. Greg could read what she was thinking, what she meant instead of "strained and weak": liable to cease.

Greg just nodded mutely, and kept watching, feeling utterly and completely sick. It was only when his phone started ringing and he extracted his hand from Sherlock's that he realised he had been gripping the detective's hand like a lifeline the entire time. Without the weight to cling to, he felt a lot emptier, and Sherlock seemed a lot more vulnerable. He checked the caller.

"Donovan," he said shortly, distracted by looking at Sherlock, now being injected with some dubious-looking liquid.

"Sir, where are you? You never take longer than 15 minutes tops to collect Sherlock."

"He's…oh my God Donovan…"

"What? What's wrong sir?" she sounded panicked; she must have picked up on the waver in Lestrade's voice.

Lestrade could feel the 25-year-old medic looking at him sympathetically.

"We're…on our way to the hospital…"

"What? What's happened?"

"It's Sherlock…he…he's – oh God, he's overdosed, and I don't know whether he's going to live or…"

He couldn't say it. He was definitely not going to ever say it.

"Shit," she breathed. "Are you all right Greg?"

"As all right as anyone could be in this situation, which is completely not all right. Look, Donovan, I have to go –"

"I'll let everyone know you won't be able to get back, call me when you know what you're doing."

He nodded, then remembering that Donovan couldn't see him, weakly confirmed out loud, and hung up. Putting his phone away, he clutched onto Sherlock again. It felt much better to have his hand on the consulting detective's, to know that he was still there, as a fittingly dreary and grey London rushed past them in a blur.