CHAPTER 23

Neal winces as his feet crunch over the glass. He reaches down, carefully picking up the shards of broken wine glass and letting them fall from his fingers into the rubbish bin. A shard slices his finger and he winces, sucking on the wound. Mozzie glances over from the sofa. "Alas, a battle wound."

Neal stares at his finger. "Just a scratch." He goes to the counter, reaching up into the cabinet for a bandage. His sleeves slide up to his forearms and he stops for a moment, studying his arms. The way the small, inflamed pin-pricks have turned to scars, memories of the way he used to be. The torture he went through, both at V's hand, and from his own, every time he brought sharp needle to skin. He shudders. He never even liked needles. He honestly doesn't know how he did it over and over. No. Wait. He does. He's an addict. When you're an addict, nothing else matters. Not even your great dislike for needles.

Mozzie looks over again as Neal stands there, staring with focused eyes at his arms. "Neal. Earth to Neal."

Neal shakes out of it, glancing over at Mozzie. "Yeah. I'm good." Mozzie nods, slowly.

"You don't seem confident that you are."

"No. No, I'm good. Really." Mozzie nods, raising his eyebrows, then turning back to his glass of wine. Neal crosses the apartment, standing in front of the bathroom, hesitating first.

"Okay, honestly, Neal, this is very Paranormal Activity, you pacing back and forth and stopping and going and whatnot. You're a creep."

Neal scoffs, then his smile fades. "I don't want to go in there."

Mozzie nods. He understands Neal's hesitation. The bathroom was the worst of Mozzie's home after Neal had, without Mozzie's permission, he would add, turned the place into a drug den. "You don't have to do it. I can clean up. It'll be good as new."

Neal considers, then shakes his head. "No, I… I have to do this. I made this mess. I have to clean it up. " Mozzie nods, watching his friend slowly swing open the door. Mozzie has to look away. Neal swallows.

A tourniquet slung over the bars of the shower. Dirty clothes piled up in the sink. A spoon sitting on top of the toilet basin. Little baggies and black balloons everywhere, needles, both functioning and broken off, everywhere. A smudge of blood adorns the floor. He doesn't want to know where it came from. He feels sick.

He carefully enters, taking great caution to not poke himself when he reaches down to pick up the needles. Mozzie suddenly appears in the doorway. His voice is quiet, as though to raise his voice would seem condescending. "I'm proud of you."

Neal looks up, blinking, and looks back down at his work. "Thanks."

Neal doesn't feel proud. He doesn't feel anything. He's numb to all of this now, he's been hardened by the last year and a half of his life. He only feels a little sad that this happened in the first place.

He studies the spot of blood, his jaw clenched, trying to figure out what happened. Mozzie clears his throat. Neal looks back.

"You fell. I tried to catch you," Mozzie says. He lifts up his sleeve, there's gauze wrapped around his forearm. He shrugs. "It was just a scratch." Neal searches Mozzie's eyes, opening his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He's at a loss for words, with this news, that in his own sick, twisted pleasure in a stoned daze, he had hurt his friend. He never meant to hurt anyone. Before Neal can say anything, Mozzie continues. "I meant to clean it up, but i couldn't find the time. You stayed in there, a lot. Door locked."

Neal looks down, swallowing, nodding, remembering.

He remembers stumbling into the bathroom after making a purchase in a drugged daze, Mozzie following him in when he saw how high Neal was. His hair was wild and unruly, his hands shook, his eyes were glazed, deadened by the drug. He slurred his words. Nothing was right with Neal. Nothing at all. He shouldered the door open, and sunk down against the wall, hands frantically reaching for the black balloon in his pocket. He emptied its contents into the spoon and shoved the lighter under it. Mozzie had appeared in the doorway. "Neal. Neal, get out."

Neal looked up, his eyes unfocused as he attempted to zone in on the figure in front of him. "What?"

"I need you to leave. Now." Neal set the spoon on the basin of the sink and pulled himself up, stumbling as he did. He was sinking again before he could even realize what was happening, he was too high to even know which way was up. Mozzie caught him before he could hit the ground, and Neal reached up to hang on to his friend, scrambling with long, uncut nails to hang on. He had felt the blood on his hands once Mozzie had hurried out, hissing in pain, but didn't know where it had come from. He washed his hands, and finished preparing the remedy, crushing the liquid and powder together and drawing it up into the syringe through the cotton. He tapped out the bubbles. He set the thing against his skin. He slid it under. And he drifted away.

Now, Neal just stares at the bandage on Mozzie's arm. "I'm so sorry, Mozz."

Mozzie nods, taking off his glasses. "I know you are."

"You believe me."

"I believe you. As much as I know that I shouldn't."

Neal shrugs, giving him a weak, yet still-so-charming smile. "I've been clean for a week."

"And I'm proud of you," Mozzie finishes. Neal nods, shoving his hands in his pockets for a moment, before going back to the cleaning.

The cleaning is more than just picking up the pieces of rubbish and cleaning the surfaces with bleach. It's picking up the pieces of his broken life and scrubbing the surface of his soul with bleach. It's getting himself back together, getting clean, and getting back into the swing of things. A normal life, without heroin. A life filled with his best friends, exciting cases, and love. Sara. She said not to come back until he was clean.

"When I'm done here, I have to take care of some things."

Mozzie glances up, looking at Neal with sadness in his eyes. "Don't do this again, Neal."

"No… no, not at all. I need to clean up another mess I made."

"Sara."

Neal glances over, studying the way Mozz looks at him with the concern of a true friend. He looks back down at the needles gathered in his hand. "Yeah. Sara."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He's careful when he knocks, it's a light tap, rather than the heavy fists he had used too often when he came stumbling to her door, drugged up and hopeless, yet hopeful that she would still have time for him, still understand him, still love him. Despite all of this, he had hoped she had realized he was still the same man, was still worth loving. He realizes now, he couldn't ask that of her. He was never the same man he was when he was high. He sees darkness in the slat of light under the door. The movement stops. He hears her from behind the door, she keeps herself guarded, just in case he's showing up at her doorstep again, high out of his mind, pleading for forgiveness, for her love. She only had so much love to give away. "What do you want, Caffrey?"

He clears his throat. "I'm just here to say I'm sorry, Sara. For everything I put you through."

"Do you remember what you said to me the last time you were here?"

He remembers.

She opened the door upon hearing a voice outside, hand flying to her mouth when she found him, sunk to the floor outside her door, half-conscious against the wall with a needle still stuck in his arm. She cried upon seeing him, muttering to himself, over and over, that Sara Ellis was all he would ever need to be happy.

"I said you were all I ever needed."

"After that."

"Caffrey. Caffrey, get up." She sat next to him, delicate legs carefully folded underneath her as she stayed modest in her dress. She caressed his cheek and cried as he slumped against her shoulder. After carefully plucking the needle from his arm and setting it on the floor, she let his head fall into her lap, and he nestled against her, riding the waves of the high that made his brow sweat and his heart pound. The high that had become more important than she was. "I miss you," she had said.

"M'here," he slurred back. "I'm right here."

"No, you're not, Caffrey. Not anymore."

"What did you say to me after that?"

She cried harder. "When? When did this damn needle become more important to you than anything else in your life? Your work? Your friends? Peter?" She sighed, running her fingers through his hair. "Me?"

He exhaled, it was shaky. He hitched on a sob. "I'm sorry." He was beginning to come down. He was relaxed, he couldn't sit up straight, but he heard every word.

"I'm losing you, Caffrey. I'm losing you more and more every day, every time I see you like this. And I don't know if I'll ever get you back." She hesitated. "Do you think I will?"

He was resigned with these next few words, to just how far he had fallen. "I don't know."

"I said I didn't know if you would ever get me back."

She swings open the door at this. "And here you are. You're back." She looks him over. "You look good, Neal."

He shoves his hands in his pockets. "I feel good." He smiles. "I'm clean a week."

"That's good. Good for you."

He sinks to the sofa, studying her as she wanders around, aimlessly tidying things that are already tidy. "What is it, Sara?" She sighs, setting down the pillow she was fluffing. "Talk to me." She sinks into the sofa across from him.

"You're clean a week. That's… that's great. Neal. But I can't get my hopes up anymore. This doesn't mean anything to me. Not yet."

His heart sinks. "I didn't do this for you."

"I know. You did it for you. That's what's important."

"I'm done with that shit. For good. I swear to you, never again."

"You've been clean a week, Neal."

"And I plan to be, for the rest of my life." She smiles, it's weak. He pushes himself up, still feeling the slight ache from the withdrawal run down his spine, and settles next to her, wrapping her up in his arms, touching her neck, smelling her hair. "I didn't do it for you, Sara. But I can't say I did it for only me."

She folds up in his arms, they naturally fit each other, like pieces clicking into place. He can feel his soul clicking into place, too. "I know, Neal."

He whispers. "I can do this. I'm ready to be what you need."

She's quiet when she responds. "You can't promise me that."

"I can, Sara." He places delicate kisses on her neck. "I can, and I do. You won't lose me. Never again. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

She shuts her eyes, a tear cuts a path down her perfect face. "I can't lose you again."

"You won't."

Her voice breaks off. "I love you, Caffrey."

He smiles into her hair, kissing the top of her head. "I love you, Sara." He tilts her chin up, and presses a kiss to her lips. "I'm staying right here."

He stayed with her, and he stayed sober.

In the office, Peter glances up as Neal saunters in, much of his former charm and charisma now back, his relaxed gait naturally returning to him, a small smile on his lips. Peter raises a brow.

"You're late."

"You know, shooting up in alleyways, getting into trouble."

Peter puts his file down. "That's not funny."

Neal nods. "You're right. It's not. That's not what I was doing." He lowers his voice. "I was with Sara."

Peter grins. "And how are things with Sara?"

Sara appears behind Neal, shooting a look at Peter over Neal's shoulder. "Things with Sara are good," she says, and Peter has to shake out of his stunned silence before he replies.

"That's, that's good." He looks to Neal, a small grin on his face. "It's good."

Neal nods, cocking his head. "Very good."

She smiles, and moves in front of Neal, hopping up onto Peter's desk and swinging one leg over the other, beckoning Neal over with a finger. Neal grins, approaching and wrapping his arms around her waist.

"So," Sara says. "I hear you're looking for an insurance investigator for your next case." Peter smiles.

Neal clears his throat. "And a reformed drug addict-slash-conman."

Peter grins even wider. "I sure could use both of those things, yes." He slaps a file onto the desk, and Sara picks it up, flipping through it, studying it.

Neal looks over her shoulder, unable to hold back his ecstatic grin at his return to normalcy. To the job he loves, the people he loves, the woman he loves. The live he loves so much. As a free man, free of bars, free of V, free of the drug.

"Alright," he says. "Let's do this."

A/N: Thank you for coming with me on this journey. I truly hope you enjoyed. Review if you feel so inclined, they are much appreciated. Stay tuned for my next story, out next month!