"You've got to be kidding!" Amanda gasped. "Seriously? Mary, your dad's Mary, was an assassin?"

"Hard to believe, right?" I looked at Sherlock, who was peacefully sleeping in his hospital bed. Dad and I had been coming the past few days to check in on him. If Mary ever visited, Sherlock never hinted at it nor did she ever say anything.

It was hard to think about Mary now, considering what Sherlock had deduced about her. She'd lost my trust and my dad's, and those weren't easy to gain back. Dad was lied to by the love of his life, and I had trust issues thanks to Moriarty. Good luck trying to get a Watson's trust after they've been deceived.

"How is he taking it?"

"I think he's getting better about it, but I don't think he'll forgive her anytime soon." I twirled a strand of blonde hair around my finger. "I hate to say it, Mandy, but the possibility of a divorce seems to be growing stronger."

"Eh, they'd stay together for the baby."

"That would be a hellish marriage." I blew air out noisily through my mouth. "They would both be miserable, and I'm sure the baby would grow up sensing it. I can picture it now, my half-sibling feeling guilty because they think they're the reason Mary and Dad act that way around one another."

"Maybe things will work out." Mandy tried to sound hopeful, but she didn't sound like she was convincing herself.

"If Dad forgives her, she better not expect me to do the same. I won't forgive her as quickly as he will, if he does."

A gentle knock brought my attention to Bayley. Our small fight we'd had a few nights ago was long behind us. I'd told Bay everything the following morning; he'd listened. He also kept me sane before I lost control and went on a rampage. No matter how many times I recalled the events, the anger, betrayal, and pain would resurface like a freshly reopened wound that had its scab picked off.

"I've got to go," I told Mandy. I hung up on her before she could say goodbye. I got out of the chair. "Did you book it?"

Bay nodded. "We're set for tomorrow."

"Good."

"Hungry?"

"Yeah. Know any good places?"

"I don't live here, Rach." He laughed. "I'll look into it."

"I'll be right out."

Bay smiled at me before leaving me alone with Sherlock. I looked back at the consulting detective, shaking my head sadly. Just how long would it be before he got himself killed solving cases? He'd had a near death experience, and if it wasn't for Mary, he wouldn't be here. So what if she saved his life? That's not enough to make me forgive her.

I did feel a little bad for Sherlock, so I gently massaged his curly head.

A lump knotted in my throat. I forced back the fake affair from my mind. It was nothing, it had been nothing. I wanted to believe that for me, but I couldn't. I'd genuinely believed there had been something, that for one moment, Sherlock Holmes was human and had a heart.

I guess he did have a heart, though, in a way. He'd told Dad and me that Mary was a liar and proved it with the stunt at Leinster Gardens. Instead of protecting us from the truth, he showed us, no matter how much it hurt. I guess he figured we would be in more danger not knowing.

So maybe Sherlock Holmes wasn't all machine.

"What do you think you're doing?" Sherlock groaned.

I took my hand away, like I was afraid he was going to bite it off. "N-nothing," I stammered, going bright red. "How're you feeling?"

"I could be better."

"I'll take that as a good sign. You haven't been abusing your medicine, have you?"

"You saw me high once, Rachel."

"And that gives me all the more reason to pay close attention to you since Dad can't." I walked over to the medicine taps. They looked to be normal, more towards the low side actually. "He's got enough on his plate."

"So you're going to live with me again?"

I looked at him. "What?"

"Well, you said you were watching me, so I figured you had plans on moving in again."

"That's not a smart idea, not after the last time it was just you and me." I scowled. "Besides, I'd prefer to live at my own place in Maryland, with Bayley."

"And then live happily ever after with children and a dog?" Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"You seem to be against happiness." I crossed to the chair again, accidentally bumping Sherlock's hospital bed with my leg.

"Happiness seems to be a façade when it comes to the Watson family."

I shook my head. "It's not true for all of us."

"It is, don't act like it isn't. You're not exactly a beaming ray of sunshine, and neither is your relationship."

"Hey, who said you could go picking at it?"

Sherlock slowly raised the upper part of his bed so he could see me better. "Your boyfriend is hiding something."

"Okay, you need to go back to sleep."

"Listen to me, Rachel."

"Haven't I done that enough?" I moaned.

"You will despite your complaining."

"I think you're just being paranoid because of Mary."

"No, I'm not paranoid. I'm looking at the facts and patterns you seem to follow."

"Excuse me?" Anger dripped into my voice.

"With you and Brady—"

"Stop doing that, Sherlock. I know you know his name is Bayley."

Sherlock sighed. "Fine. With you and Bayley—happy now?—with you and him, I can see it's going down a path you took before."

I scoffed. "You're just trying to scare me out of my relationship. Don't tell me you're jealous."

"Hardly. If you remember, I used you as a test run to make a pawn out of Janine."

I squirmed uneasily. "Go on."

"There are obvious signs that he's keeping something from you, something big. He's not as good of an actor as Mary, so I'm surprised he's kept you in the dark for so long. Then again, I'm sure it's not hard to, considering—"

"Yeah, yeah, Moriarty fooled me. I don't need another reminder. Are you going to tell me what you're trying to get at, or are you going to be annoyingly vague about it? I've got to leave." I flicked a thumb to the door.

"Hey." I spun around to see Bayley pop back in briefly. "You ready?" He took me in his arms.

"Yeah, let me make sure I didn't leave anything." Bay frowned, clearly not laughing about my joke. "Come on, you shouldn't be so mad about it considering I told you everything that happened!" I pecked him on the lips. "Cheer up, please?"

Bayley looked past me, his blue eyes narrowing. I whirled around to see Sherlock staring back at him. Blue meeting blue-gray, it was starting to bother me. I threw Sherlock a pointed look.

I gave Bay a nudge towards the door. Sherlock wasn't about to plant doubt into my head about my boyfriend. Bayley was not Moriarty.

"I can't wait to tell you 'I told you so,'" Sherlock called as we left his room.

"What's he mean?" Bay asked.

"Keep walking," I said instantly. "He's on medication; he doesn't know what he's saying."

* * *

It turned out Sherlock's accusation was still ringing in my head. Out to lunch with Bay had kept his words at bay, but once we were back in the hotel room, that's when they sprung. My thoughts were dangerous when I was embraced in silence. There are obvious signs that he's keeping something from you, something big. What could Bayley possibly be hiding from me? He'd already told me about the night he lost his girlfriend. Was there perhaps another one after her that met a similar fate?

If that was the case, was Sherlock trying to protect me from bad luck?

I chewed on my thumbnail as I skimmed through Dad's blog, hoping to drown out my thoughts with a case. I tapped on the post "The Great Game". Not too far into it, I realized this was the case where Dad and Sherlock officially met Moriarty, and me. Despite my brain telling me to click away from the post, I kept reading. I shook my head, recalling all the victims, their terrified expressions.

When I got to the end of the post, I noticed I was vaguely mentioned. Dad deemed me foolish, as I'd attempted to kill Moriarty. At the time, it had seemed like a perfect plan. I had had a gun in my hand, and I had wanted him dead. Who wouldn't try and take up that chance? I'd recklessly done so, not thinking about the snipers, not thinking that Moriarty had given them orders to shoot me if I retaliated.

My left shoulder throbbed lightly at the memory.

That was the night I'd met my biological father without knowing it. It was also the first time Dad saw his daughter whom he never knew existed. I smiled bleakly. We'd met on a dangerous occasion.

I'm not paranoid, I'm looking at the facts and patterns you seem to follow, Sherlock's nagging voice invaded my head again. I groaned, wishing the voice would die already. As long as I was in London, it wouldn't.

The voice had to go away once I was back in the United States. I wasn't going to let Sherlock make me doubt Bayley's honesty. What kind of a relationship was it if you weren't entirely honest with each other? This one thrived much better than my last, with the most obvious reason being that Bayley wasn't a consulting criminal and didn't have minions commit crimes for him.

If Bay was keeping something from me, what could it be? It could range from anything, which made it difficult to narrow it down. But he's not hiding anything from me. He isn't. He can't be. Sherlock is...

What? What was Sherlock now? Injured? Yes. Exhausted? Yes. Paranoid? Oh hell yes. He was just trying to get on my nerves. That had to be it. The medication wasn't helping him either. But he wasn't on as much as I'd expected. Maybe it was the lack of sleep getting to him, or the fact that he was willing to do anything to distract himself from the pain he was still feeling.

I looked down on Bayley, who was out like a light. I massaged his scalp. Sherlock's idea still stuck in my head. I bit on my lip. I could trust Sherlock on some things: to look out for my dad, to solve cases without having any casualties, and to find my biological dad. He did—and was currently still doing—those things. But this—what he was saying—I couldn't believe him on his words.

A small part of me, shockingly, wanted to believe Sherlock. I wanted to slap that part of me for being stupid. Why would I want to believe Sherlock was right about Bayley? He was right about Mary. He exposed her. Is that what Sherlock is doing, trying to expose Bayley? What if he's wrong, like he had been about me a few times?

My head pounded slightly. In the time I'd known him, Sherlock Holmes was rarely wrong about things, or people. He'd been wrong about me when he'd thought I was Moriarty's spy when I'd come knocking at 221B Baker Street years ago. He'd been right about John Watson being my father. He'd been right when he'd told me he wasn't right for me when we'd been "together" a month or so ago.

Was I going to believe him now when he was saying something involving the man I loved? Half of me wanted to ignore Sherlock, but the other half wanted to dig deeper into what he was saying about Bayley. If I put my trust in him, would it be for nothing? What if it turned out Sherlock was right?

What if, what if, what if.