Just barely got this done on time. I hate research papers. They have a way of sucking up all your spare time.

I feel like two chapters a week is too slow a pace... but I'm not sure if I would be able to keep up with anything faster. But I'll let you guys know if I do decide to up the chapter/week ratio.

Enjoy the chapter.

Cold darkness swirled around me like the tendrils of a winter snow-storm. It was dark, the sky devoid of stars, Baker Street empty of life or light. The door to the flat had been left open, deep snow building just inside the foyer, a mournful tune echoing out from the cavernous stairway.

I stepped carefully over the piles of snow, pulling my coat tight. The stairs screamed with frozen effort under my feet, threatening to snap at any moment. Tracks of stnow followed me up and lead through the doorway into our flat. Door ajar, the freezing wind blew through the wide windows, their billowing curtains filling the entire room.

You stood against the breeze, wearing only your dressing gown, the sleeves tied up around your arms. A dark tune shivered up from your violin, ice hanging off the neck of the instrument as you held it, cradling it against the cold. Your eyes met mine, colder even than the wind.

"Come in, John," You called, your voice thick. "Please, John, come in."

My throat tightened as you turned. Your puncture wounds seeped a white liquid, marks running from your inner arm to your wrist.

The violin's air ran sour, then stopped.

The thick smell of rubbing alcohol and air-fresheners merged together and greeted me with a burning. My stomach writhed painfully, empty, though my head and arms seemed almost comfortably numb. Sedatives, I thought in dread. The hospital sheets were unusually soft, and though I wouldn't necessarily say I was dizzy, my brain felt like it was on an entirely different sphere of reality from the rest of my body. I hated the feeling, and it stirred up old memories that I would rather have left buried.

You were seated in a chair just a pace away from me, vacantly staring at the far wall while your fingers drummed against your leg. I assumed you had seen me stir, but you gave no hint of movement. We were alone, the other beds unoccupied, which either could have been luck or your request. But either way, I was glad. It was quiet - quieter than the buzz that I attributed to hospitals, at least.

"You're awake, finally." You murmured, your tenor voice vibrating pleasantly. "How did you sleep."

"Mm..." I glanced over you. "Alright."

"Good." Your tapping stopped.

I made a half-hearted attempt to sit up, but I felt the prick of the IV in my arm and gave up. Instead, I situated myself more comfortably on my pillow and looked up at the ceiling. "Is this a hospital?"

"Yes."

"St. Bart's?"

"You're awfully alert for a man who's been unconscious the past seventeen hours and thirty-four minutes."

I looked at you. "Seventeen hours? By god. What happened to me? I hardly remember a thing."

"What's the part you do remember."

"Well..." I breathed a little. "Mycroft's study."

"Yes. Where you promptly lost consciousness."

"Lost consciousness?"

"To be more specific, you stopped breathing."

"Why?"

"I was hoping that you would be able to answer that question."

I grunted. "What's the doctor's opinion?"

"He's running a few tests to finalize his diagnosis, but he's got a general idea."

"Which is?"

You continued tapping.

"Sherlock? What's his diagnosis?"

You paused, glancing up at me. Our eyes met, and I saw the emotion clouding your ice-blue eyes. Grief? No, why in the world would you be grieving. Sadness? Why would you sad? After a short pause, you opened your mouth to answer me, but a quick knock at the door interrupted you, and we both looked up.

The door opened to reveal my doctor, a stout man in his late sixties, who balanced a clipboard on his arm as he closed the door behind him. There was one main reason why I hated doctor's appointments; not just because I was a doctor myself, but because my current physician was as hard-headed as they come. Ella Thompson, my therapist, suggested him to me, and I didn't think twice about it, but I regret it every time I have to see him. At first I tried my best to get along with him, for Ella. But we met eyes and simultaneously recognized that this interaction would be just as big a power struggle as any had been.

"Hello, John," He said with a smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright." I glanced up at the IV stand. "Moderately high."

"I'll turn your levels down." He handed his clipboard to you, and you glanced over it while he came around to my other side. "Did you sleep alright? Dreams, nightmares, tremors?"

"Dreams, yeah, but just abstract ones. Nothing peculiar." I stretched out my legs, watching him. "Sherlock said you ran tests."

"Yes. We've run blood samples for every kind of drug or poison that's in our database, per your fiancé's request. But we found no evidence of anything that could have caused your illness, hardly anything noteworthy at all." He took a seat just behind you, crossing his legs casually and looking over me. "Do you remember what happened, John?"

"Bits." I nervously glanced at you, though you seemed less worried about me and more worried about the results that came up on the sheet.

"Are you sure these are all correct?" You asked, grumbling.

"We've run the tests three times," The doctor sighed, "I'm certain. There's no trace of anything in John's system, nothing to even hint at a drugging."

"You thought I'd been drugged?"

"That was Mr. Sherlock's first idea, but we've eliminated that possibility," He said, clicking his pen and holding his hand out for the clipboard. "Eliminated it several times, actually."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Well, John, all the signs are pointing towards a panic attack." He took the clipboard and glanced over it to refresh himself. "We haven't found any traces of foreign chemicals in your body, but you are showing signs of increased stress and emotional trauma. How have you been feeling the last few days, John?"

I blinked, my mouth feeling a little dry. "Well, I've been feeling fine..." I looked between you and the doctor, meeting two very similar cynical expressions. "Really, I have. I mean, I've been stressed, more than usual as you can imagine, with the engagement and all, but nothing besides that. Nothing to warrant a panic attack..."

"You've been feeling stressed, you said?" He hummed, scratching onto his page. He was sure to angle himself so that the clipboard balanced against his leg, therefore out of my view. "On a scale of one to ten, how stressed did you feel?"

I bit the inside of my cheek. "Er, maybe a six?"

"A six. Alright. And where are you normally?"

"Two or three? I don't know. It fluctuates with cases. What's the importance of this, again?"

"Alright. Think back to last night, to the party you and Mr. Sherlock attended. How did you feel then?"

"I felt fine," I growled.

"Were you feeling stressed that night? Anxious, frightened, upset, sad?" He continued to scratch.

"No. Not any of those things."

"Tell me about what you were feeling, then."

I huffed. "I was feeling perfectly normal. I wasn't anxious, I wasn't sad. I had been chatting with my friends just minutes before Sherlock whisked me off to the upstairs. It was Christmas, we were at a party, surrounded by people, eating and drinking, I was socializing perfectly well."

"What changed, then? After Sherlock brought you upstairs, how did you feel?"

"I..." I chuckled nervously, glancing at you again. "I don't know, I felt the same as downstairs. A little frustrated with him, but besides a little annoyance, nothing else changed."

"Alright." He tapped his pen against the plastic. "Can you recount what happened in the study?"

"Excuse me, sir, but I'd rather not," I said, flustered.

"I'm aware that you and Sherlock were intimate, and he's already given me his perspective of the situation, but can you tell me what happened without mentioning the uncomfortable details?"

"Maybe." I cleared my throat. "We were just... in the study, he was... er, well, um... and then... it felt like the room got too warm. That's what I remember. The room got very warm, almost blazing. It was hard for me to breathe, like I couldn't get enough air. I was very dizzy, nauseous."

"Mm, dizzy." He scratched my symptoms onto the pad (subtly forgetting to angle well enough). "What else? Can you expound on that?"

"Well, I'm not sure how. I just remember getting warmer, there was this... tightness, in my chest. I thought I was having a heart attack, and I got scared. I tried to kick Sherlock off, I think. I thought I was going to die."

"So, you panicked."

I made a face. "I know what you want to set this up to look like, but it definitely was not a panic attack. I would lean more towards the drugging than a panic attack."

"There were no traces of foreign-"

"-chemicals in my system, yes, you've stated that plenty of times. But you can eliminate 'panic attack' from the list of possibilities, too. I was not feeling anxious before my symptoms started, and I..." I paused to test my words. "I was never susceptible to panic attacks, even when my mental health was in question. Which, right now, it isn't, which makes it even less likely."

Silence hung too long to be comfortable, while the doctor looked over his papers and you diverted your gaze.

"It isn't, right?" I added, more a statement than a question.

"Dr. Watson, I know you're a very intelligent man, and in no way am I trying to insult that intelligence," The doctor began, but I jumped in.

"Don't start out like that, doctor, it doesn't reassure me." I blurted. "Tell me what's happening, no cover-ups, no tricks."

He sighed, but complied. "We think this could be a sign of depressive relapse." He explained. "You've struggled with chronic depression in the past, particularly in your recent past. You reported a significant improvement in the past few months, and consequently stopped visiting your therapist. However, you are at high risk of falling back into your old illness if steps are not taken to ensure your mental health."

My mouth fell open a little, and I couldn't help but laugh at him. "I'm not relapsing, doctor," I insisted. "This wasn't a panic attack."

"It was, John. All of your symptoms evidence it."

The heart monitor began to beep ecstatically as my anger mounted. "I'm not relapsing. You've got your diagnosis wrong."

"Calm down, John, there's nothing to get angry about," He said, smoothly.

"Oh, no, there's plenty to get angry about," I seethed. "Run the tests again."

"We've had the tests run three times already, I'm sure if there was anything even the slightest bit off-balance we would have-"

"Run the tests again."

You set your hand on my shoulder, leaning down over me with a serious sort of look on your face. I opened my mouth to shout, but you shushed me. "John. Pay attention to your heart rate. I know you're not happy about this, but the sooner you're stabilized without the sedatives, the sooner you can leave." You narrowed your eyes a little, trying to better communicate the seriousness in your tone. You didn't like it, either. But causing a scene was not going to make it any easier for me.

I sighed, closing my eyes. "Fine, fine. I'll... entertain the possibility."

"That's wise of you." The doctor tore several sheets off his clipboard and handed them to you as you sat back down. "I've prescribed you a small dosage of Xanax, which I know you're familiar with. It seemed to work the best for you, and I'm hoping for the same results here."

"But w-" I stopped myself, keeping my tone in check. "But, why? The side-effects are awful."

"A necessary evil, Dr. Watson." He smiled sadly. "Your fiancé has a slip of paper with the prescription, just turn it in at the desk downstairs and they'll find yours. You need to take it twice a day, every day, and come back in to see me once it's finished. In the meantime, I would highly suggest that you arrange for another meeting with Mrs. Thompson. I'll let you know now that she and I will keep up communication, so that I will be able to accurately gauge your health and what further steps need to be taken."

I pursed my lips. "Is that really necessary?"

"I'm afraid so." He heaved and stood up, brushing down the length of his white coat. "A doctor's first priority is his patient, you should know that very well. And if I think you're a suicide risk, you'll have to be treated as one. God forbid it gets to that point, but we have to consider all possibilities, for your own sake."

My mouth went bone-dry and I looked back at the ceiling, nodding passively.

"I'll go talk to the nurse about having you released. Until then, get some rest. I'll be back soon." The doctor smiled at both of us, then took his leave.

You were unusually quiet after he left, your tapping growing softer, eyes focused on me. There was a tense wrinkle to your brow, and the heat of your gaze was starting to make me uneasy. I chuckled at you, trying to lighten the mood. "What a stubborn ass of a man, hm?" I shuffled in the bed. "Sherlock?"

With one fluid motion you rose from your seat, turning on your heel to walk toward the window. "Mrs. Hudson is awfully worried about you."

"Oh, poor woman. Does she know the reason?"

You turned to shoot me a look, another of your annoying looks, only this time there was no jealousy behind it. This time I couldn't tell, but it looked like suspicion. Angry, dejected suspicion. Trouble brewed like a storm inside you, and the apprehension turned my stomach. Lightning flashed in your eyes, thunder rumbling in your breath, and I was not looking forward to the rain.

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Next update on Thursday.