Not again.

I whimpered, still frightened even though Moriarty was not back for another visit. Instead of meeting brown eyes, I was met with eyes that had told me goodbye yesterday. He was just as I remembered him before he took his life.

What was with me seeing suicidal men today?

All the breath was sucked out of me by his mere presence. I swallowed, slowly edging towards the threshold. Our eyes never broke apart. My heart was flying so fast I thought it would explode.

While my eyes were full of shock, confusion, and a million other emotions, the eyes that held mine looked...pained, like how his voice had sounded when he had been on the phone with John. I wondered if he would walk right past me, or through me, only to find the nearest window and hop out of it. Let's not think about it and not have it happen.

What if he's real? I never really saw his body. Moriarty, he had shot himself. The proof was there in his hand. But him, I hadn't seen any proof, unless I count the blur of the stretcher and the paramedics...

I wasn't sure if he was really standing in front of me or not. As crazy as it sounded, I was considering the slim possibility of him being alive.

God, I was losing my mind.

Faint footsteps from the other side of the apartment made me jump.

"Rachel?" John. Finally, he was back! He has to...

I looked over my shoulder, the footsteps grew louder. I turned my attention back to the man who was—surprisingly—still standing before me. I opened my mouth, ready to tell John I was in the bedroom, but he put one long finger on his lips.

Whether you're real or not, why should I listen to you? My eyes said it all; I headed out of the bedroom at a full out sprint, nearly taking John out the moment he got in.

"What's going on?" he sputtered as I helped him right himself. "Did someone break in?"

I panted, trying to be coherent. "He—I just—home alone—he's here—"

"Slow down, Rachel. Who's where?"

"He's here, John! He is!" I knew how touchy John was when I mentioned the name, so for his sake, I never uttered it.

John's eyes turned sad, pitiful. "You're only seeing things, I'm afraid."

"No, I wasn't—I'm not." Without any explanation, I pulled John behind me, heading for the bedroom. "He's standing right—" The last word never came out.

He was gone, just like Moriarty had been. The bedroom was like it was before: untouched and uninhabited.

"No..." I stepped into the room, dropping John's arm. My lip quivered. "He was just here."

"What's going on with you, Rachel?" John held genuine concern and fear in his tone.

I looked back at him. "Nothing! I just—"

"What were you doing in here to begin with?"

"I zoned out with music playing."

"You probably fell asleep to music and were dreaming, then." He fingered the dangling ear buds that had fallen out in my haste.

"But I didn't! I was awake; I was just...into the music."

John didn't look convinced. "You haven't been sleeping well lately."

"It's not because I'm sleep deprived! I mean, it could be, but I'm pretty sure it's not the reason why."

"Do we need to put you on medication?"

"Please don't," I begged. "I don't want tests done on me either. If you think I'm crazy...I'm not, I swear."

"All right, all right, easy. I never said you were crazy. Let's settle down. Do you think you can do that?" I stared at him but visibly relaxed. "Good. Now please, close this door. I don't want you going in here ever again. Do you understand?"

God, he made it sound like I was five years old or something, the way he was talking to me.

John looked around the bedroom warily. I sighed. That was enough of an answer for him. "Now, come on, I'm sure you haven't eaten. Have you?"

"No. But don't think you're the one to be making something."

John took one last look into the room before leaving me standing in it. I don't understand...Maybe he wasn't real, like Moriarty. I held back the tears, wrapping the ear buds around the iPod.

Defeated and down, I grabbed the knob, pulling the door behind me. I didn't bother to take one last look into the bedroom, because I knew I would see nothing. Like Moriarty, he was nothing more than a vision.

Unlike Moriarty, I wanted him to be alive.

* * *

Silence was quickly becoming a norm in our apartment. I could never bring myself to call the place for what it was, a "flat."

John and I ate in silence, the only noises made were us chewing and breathing. I kind of wished we had a pet, like a dog or a bird. We needed company besides each other's.

After dinner, John went to work on his laptop. Typing wasn't frequent, so I assumed he was probably surfing the Internet like all people succumbed to at some point in their lives. As for me, I was perched near one of the windows, glaring out into the London night scenery.

"How soon do you plan on leaving?"

My brows scrunched up. "Excuse me?"

"How soon—"

"No, I heard you," I said shortly, sucking in a breath. "I'm not sure. I've still got to figure it out. It'll depend on how the next few days go." I stole a look at John, who was looking back at me.

I could see a broken man before me, and it broke my heart. He and I were in a fragile place in our lives right now, a time where we'd both lost someone we knew. I knew my grief couldn't compare to John's, as he'd known him for much longer than I ever had.

"I just figured since you'll probably never find out..."

"I did," I muttered, though as I uttered it, I wasn't so sure.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." I looked out the window again.

"No, you said something, Rachel."

"It was nothing, John." But it is. But do I want to tell you, when the mere thought of yesterday is still fresh in our minds? Do I want to risk reopening scabbing wounds right now? I looked around, smiling grimly. "Everything has him in it. The furniture, the walls...everything."

We haven't even had the funeral yet. Right now, I seemed worse off than I probably would at the funeral. Truthfully, I'd only been to a few in my life, and they'd all been for grandparents. Attending a funeral for family was one thing, attending an acquaintance's funeral would be a whole new thing for me. I had a feeling it would be harder too, to be there, only because I'd seen the departed in his final moments, before he had fallen...

"Something bothering you?"

"Hmm?"

"Your hands."

I stopped wringing them. "I've got to talk about it, John, just a little." My voice was a whisper. "You don't have to listen, but I need to talk about it." John didn't say anything, so I assumed he was letting me have the floor. "I can't imagine what you saw yesterday. It probably puts past horrors you've seen to shame." I chuckled lamely. "But I...I saw him just...fall." I shook my head. "He'd caught me following him, and we got into a little heated discussion. Before I knew it, he was gone." I'd left out a huge, major chunk of the story, but I did it for John's sake. If I told him the theory that was told to me, I was sure he wouldn't give it a fair chance. For some reason, I wanted to give the theory a chance. I wanted the search for my biological dad to finally come to an end. The saying anything is possible came to mind with that sliver of hope that John Watson was my dad.

"Are you sure you don't need a therapist, Rachel?"

"I'll decide when I need one. Right now, I think I'm okay."

"You're more than welcome to join me when I go to my next session."

"And when will that be?"

"I have to see what works for her."

I inhaled a large breath, feeling suddenly weary. "John?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you going to be staying here, after...?" I couldn't say the funeral.

"Probably not. I mean, would you?" He chuckled apathetically.

I shook my head. "No, I probably wouldn't."

"That's a good time for you to head back, when I look for another place."

My heart ached a little at the idea. I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave so soon after the funeral. I mean, it was hard to say how this would affect John in the long run, losing him. I knew if I moved back to America, I would have an immense support group. Who did John have?

He's got Mrs. Hudson, his therapist—if she counts—and then he's got...me, his possible biological daughter that he has no idea about, if it's even true. I felt a burden pressing on my chest. When was the right time to tell John the theory? Would I even get the chance to before I headed back home to Maryland?

If I wanted to tell him, I wanted to do it face to face. He deserved to hear it that way.

* * *

I couldn't sleep. Though my eyes were heavy, my mind wasn't. I was trying to shake off those hallucinations I'd seen earlier today. They'd looked so real, one more so than the other. I wanted them to be just hallucinations and not ghosts. Imagine if Moriarty and he were haunting me. I would definitely have an incentive to head back to Maryland then. I wouldn't linger in London if the title of Ghost Whisperer or Ghost Girl was part of me.

I intertwined my fingers, laying my hands across my forehead, wondering if I was ever going to get back into the swing of things and feel normal again.

A light bulb went off in my head, reminding me of a very true fact. I didn't know why I didn't realize it before—probably because of everything crashing down on me.

Now that Moriarty was gone, he wasn't going to come after me. He was dead. The dead couldn't come back to the land of the living; it was by all means impossible. Shockingly, my heart lifted a bit.

I was finally free from that psychotic tyrant. I was free from his surprise visits, his threats, and his taunts. But yet, a part of me missed him—not the real him, but the act he had put on for me when I had first met him. That man had died long ago, and believe it or not, I sometimes wished he had been real. I wondered how different things would have been had that act been reality.

A small nagging fear in the back of my mind reminded me that Moriarty had been well connected in the criminal world. I paled, now wondering if he'd given my name to his criminal buddies. What if he sent them to do the dirty work should something happen to him?

Another question popped into my head: had Moriarty known about John being my dad? Was the injury to my shoulder a message saying that he secretly knew? I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't even know if it's true. Sherlock could have said it to throw me off balance. Maybe he never found out and was desperate to get rid of me, so he said a name I would least expect. But, he had backed it up with some reasoning, some spooky reasoning.

I groaned gutturally, my head erupted into pain. I was thinking way too much about everything. 

**Hmm, what do you think, detectives? We know for a fact Moriarty was just a hallucination, what about Sherlock? Think he would actually return to Baker Street like that?

Oh, and by the end of this book, Rachel (and you all) will find her father's true identity, rest assured.**