We've been playing this game for two years.

I commit the crime, he solves it, we pretend like we're different people on alternating days.

One day I'm a cold-blooded killer with a husband who allows it, and the next I'm the caring wife of a consulting detective. Either I'm distant or he is; either I break first or he does.

It makes my head hurt.

One night he woke me up with a concerned look on his face. "What's wrong?" I ask, remembering that since it was two in the morning, I wasn't a murderer.

"You were crying." he replies. One look and I knew: it was probably due to what I had to do to a victim the previous day. It's not like I wanted to hurt people, especially on my off days It's just that when I am working, I feel like a whole different person. I can see the world for what it really is, which is filled with filth and lies. That pure hatred overrides my conscience, but night has a way of making fools of us all.

"Probably just remembered a case I saw you working on." I say quietly. I have accompanied him to some crime scenes, viewing what I had done the day/hour before. It's like that version of me keeps the person I am right now from knowing how terribly the victims had died. Papa say that the pain goes away, but I don't know if it ever will for me.

All he does is nod. He knows I'm lying.

Secretly, I know I'm lying too.

I don't mind her lying; it kind of spares us both.

I don't even mind the fact that she divides her personality to spare her conscience. I'm in love with both versions of her; one is an outgoing, somewhat crazy, insightful serial killer, the other a sweet, intelligent, caring housewife.

Both are funny. Both are classy. Both are her. And I love her, no matter what she'd "become". I made that promise two years ago.

She's finally fallen back asleep; I go out on the veranda with my phone. I think John will have woken up by now.

He answers on the first ring. "Couldn't sleep either, huh?" John still has nightmares about the war. I know Sherlock has tried to give him sleeping pills, but they don't always work.

"No. She was talking in her sleep again. Crying this time. I just don't know how I can help her."

"Look, son, you've tried all you can. I know this new side of her isn't the most pleasant to deal with, but it's her way of coping."

"She's not coping," I reply, swallowing the ever-impending tears. "She's lying to herself."

"That's what Moran does, that's what James does, I know Sherlock does it sometimes too. We all lie to ourselves sometimes. Listen," John inhales deeply, and I can tell what he's about to say will hurt us both. "She is worth it, she is. I've seen you two together, even recently, and anyone within a five kilometer radius can tell you two are in love. But if you two don't find a way to deal with this, what will it do to you? Or to her?"

I pull the phone away from my face so John doesn't have to hear my choked sobs. This was killing her; I just knew it. "She won't change anything. She told me this was for the best; if she could be alternating. She'll be okay. I'll be okay. We'll be okay. Okay is better than bad, right?"

John takes a long pause. I know he heard the tears behind my reassurance. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and sorrowful, like the day he told me Sabrina had died. "Sometimes, Hamish, okay is worse than bad."

I hear a door open on the other end and I know Sherlock had awakened. "I have to go. Try and sleep, okay?"

"Goodbye, dad." I knew John wasn't my real father, but ever since I spat those poison words at him almost three years ago, I knew he was heartbroken. I tried to call him "dad" and "father" often, to let him know that I didn't really mean what I had said.

I go back into our room and shut the door behind me. Sabrina is still sleeping, but I can tell her nightmare is returning. I sit beside her, gently stroke her hair, and try to remember the lyrics to her favorite song.

"Maybe I've been here before, I know this room, I've walked this floor, I used to live alone before I knew you," I sing quietly to her, remembering the rest of the verse. "I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken 'hallelujah'." My voice fails to sing the chorus. It doesn't matter; she's sleeping peacefully now.

I sing the last verse to myself as I try to fall asleep. "Maybe there's a God above, and all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light, it's a cold and it's a broken 'hallelujah'."

So hallelujah to the both of us.