First of all, I don't know how most people typically respond to reviews, so I'm just going to do it in the Author's Note at the bottom from this point forward.

Secondly, I was really proud of the last chapter. I wrote it in like, two hours, but I felt like it had just enough freaky for my liking. Normally, it takes me a lot longer to write chapters (even though they are sort of short) because I am a perfectionist and I go over things way too many times before posting. Anyway, I just wanted to share my joy. :) Here is my next chapter. Sorry that it is so short, but it is the lead-in to a much longer chapter and I wanted this one to stand alone.

Feel free to PM and please R&R. Enjoy!

~R.

Sherlock grabbed her by the arm and shoved her into the sitting room. Rose struggled out of his grasp, but the look on his face kept her from verbally protesting. He looked stressed. Anxious.

He let go of her and began to pace the floor erratically, mumbling things Rose couldn't quite catch. When his voice would raise a bit, she could hear bits and pieces. Something about dimensions, unexpected, not possible, not matching the pattern...

"Sherlock? Sherlock, what are you talking about!?"

He stopped in his tracks to look at her, eyes wild.

"I didn't think you'd have one."

"Have…have a…"

"Yes, that!" he huffed impatiently as he returned to pacing. "John had one as well, but I didn't think anyone else could have one…"

"Wait, John, has one?" she stepped in front of him. He looked down at her.

"Yes, Rose, John has one. I discovered mine and later, I found there would be two in the room when John was with me."

She stared into his grey-blue eyes, searching for something. This was Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes wasn't fazed by anything.

"Does he know?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He hasn't discovered it yet and he's safer not knowing."

She paused. "Safer?"

"Don't tell me you think they're our guardian angels?" he snorted. "Of course they're malicious. You can feel it and despite my distrust for emotion, here that is the only thing you can trust."

Rose was too overwhelmed to quite catch the comment. Sherlock continued his pacing, rambling as he did so.

"This changes things. You shouldn't have one. Only John and I."

"No one else?"

"No, of course no one else!" he snapped. "Haven't you checked? Oh, of course not. You may be the pick of the bad lot, but you're still an idiot."

"Sherlock!"

He ignored her. "This can't be good. It can only mean one thing."

"What's that?"

He stopped to look at her between narrowed eyes.

"It means you are real. Which I suspected to begin with, but having it confirmed…" Sherlock trailed off, paying little attention to Rose's incredulous look.

"What do you mean, I'm real? Of course I'm—"

"How old are you?" he asked abruptly.

"What?"

He pantomimed dramatically in his aggravation. "Rose, how old are you?"

"…I'm 21, why?"

"And how long have you been 21?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "What do you mean, how long have I been twenty…" Her voice trailed off along with the laughter. How long? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember her 21st birthday, come to think of it. Months, right? Must've been months…unless everyone forgot my 22nd birthday... How old had she been when she started to date John? That was something she was supposed to remember, wasn't it? Remember…something…

"Oh my god," she whispered. He looked at her meaningfully. It was beginning to sink in.

Sherlock took her roughly by the shoulders and thrust her towards the other side of the room.

"Look out the window, Rose. Tell me, what do you see?" His voice was hard, focused.

"I see…I see a few cars passing. Um, I see pedestrians…"

"No! No, Rose, you're smarter than that! You see, but you don't observe," he growled next to her ear, hands still gripping her shoulders. "What is on the street?!"

"…I, I don't know what you want me to…"

"The cars, Rose," his fingers were bruising her arms through her jacket. "What color are the cars?"

"Black."

"Which ones?"

There was a long, painful pause. "…all of them."

"Good, now," he left her to grab something off the shelf then he returned to stand behind her again. In his hand was a stop watch. He clicked it just as a car drove by.

"The second hand of the watch, Rose. Watch the time," he instructed.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty…another car drove by.

"There! There, did you see it, Rose?" He pointed out the window with his free hand as he clicked the watch to stop the time.

Rose shook her head, uncomprehending. "Did I see what?"

"The car, Rose, dammit, watch the cars!" his voice reverberated in her ear.

"What am I looking for?"

"Look, Rose." His voice dropped until it barely registered at all. "I can't tell you; you have to see it for yourself." She nodded dumbly and looked back down at the watch in his hand.

Twenty, thirty, forty… Her eyes drifted back up to the street.

That was when she saw it. The driver. The license plate. The make and model. It was all the same.

"But…how could you go around the block in forty seconds?" her breath frosted the window.

"You can't."

"Why…why would someone drive by the house three times?"

"You wouldn't."

"…"

"Rose."

Silence.

"Rose."

"What?" she whispered.

"Look at me." His voice was uncharacteristically soft. She turned. "Rose, tell me, what about this room has changed since you met me?"

She looked around the room.

"…Nothing."

"Nothing?"

She shook her head. "No. The furniture is in the same place, the skull on the mantelpiece…" He shook his head back, black curls brushing along his forehead.

"Rose, I want you to take this watch." He took her hand and folded her fingers around the item. "Now, look at the face." She obeyed. "Tell it to stop ticking, Rose." Her face went up to look at him, now a yard's distance from her. He was trying to give her space for something, as if it weren't the watch that was ticking, but Rose herself.

"What? Why?" She couldn't understand the order.

"Just do it. Try," he implored.

She looked down and said simply, "Stop."

The second hand froze.

She looked up, suddenly incapable of breathing.

"Please, Rose, tell me you get it by now?" He was exasperated, yet there was the hint of fear in his eyes. Rose, however, was catatonic. She just stared back out at him, unmoving, unspeaking.

He grabbed her by the shoulders a second time and drew her to the mirror above the mantelpiece.

"Rose, what do you see?" It seemed as if any moment, he would lose control and roar at her to just understand!

But she didn't answer. He shook her, blonde strands of hair falling from the bun at the base of her neck, life barely returning to her eyes. She swallowed and blinked a few times.

"M—myself," the answer came quietly.

"Yes, and what else?"

"Nothing."

"…exactly."

She froze in place. And that was when it finally clicked.

She was in the mirror and so was the room. The wall behind her head, riddled with bullet holes, was clearly there, complete with ugly Victorian wallpaper. The doorway was there. The furniture was there.

Sherlock Holmes, however, was not.

"Sherlock…," she turned to look at him. "You're not a vampire, are you?" The query was laced with a sort of droll terror.

He stared at her sadly.

"No, Rose, I am not." He paused. "I am simply choosing not to be seen."

"How?"

"Once I realized this world wasn't real, I discovered I could manipulate it."

She tried to swallow again, tried to force down the bile threatening to sear its way up her throat, but discovered her entire system was too dry, too unexpectedly fatigued to swallow at all.

"But, if this isn't real…what are those shadows and why are they following us? And how can three people be having the same dream? The same…nightmare?"

Sherlock smiled grimly at the frightened woman in the mirror. "Oh, I never said it was a dream, Rose. You wake up from dreams."

The hairs on their necks rose.

"Sherlock…," she looked to her side into the mirror and saw something standing behind her.

"I know, Rose. They're here."

With that, they both looked to their sides and for the first time, they saw the shadow men full-on. They weren't hiding in the corners any longer; they stood before Rose and Sherlock undisguised—creatures that seemed to breathe out of darkness, not quite existing…like their forms were concave, not convex. As if their forms drew life and light in, not exuded them. As if they were the absence of substance. Non-things.

And they were seething.

Author's Note:

To MargauxUniverse: THANK YOU! I am so glad it was actually scary because I was a little worried it would come off as being about as frightening as one of those grade-B horror films. :D And I think this next chapter will answer your question about how the Winchester boys will join the story. Thanks for reading; I'm flattered by your comment. Hearts!