Chapter Twelve;

Reality

Dani opened her eyes to see a blurry room around her. She wiped her eyes, and noticed that she had been crying. The first thing she saw was a worried Sara, sitting beside her. The brunette didn't say a word, but her eyes were scaring Dani, they were so very worried. The little girl looked around the room, noticing a dark red rug, two large bookcases, and beige curtains.

"What happened?" Dani choked out. Sara reached over and squeezed Dani's hand. After a pause, Dani spoke again. "What happened to mom?"

Sara's mouth dropped, staring at the little girl. Dani didn't believe that Sara could look more worried, but she was proven wrong.

"Are we still in San Francisco?" Dani asked. She looked around, noticing a lady sitting at her desk, simply watching Dani. Sara looked at the lady with desperate eyes.

"It's not…" Sara started, but her voice cracked and didn't want to keep going.

"I'm afraid so…" The lady said. Sara looked back at Dani.

"What's going on?" Dani asked, "Sara, where are we?"

The lady stood up from her desk and walked towards Dani, taking a seat in a chair beside the couch Dani was sitting on.

"Dani, you were dreaming…" Sara said, tears forming in her eyes.

Dani shook her head. "No, it wasn't. It was real. Dreams don't feel like that!"

"It wasn't exactly a dream, it was a hallucination," The lady said.

Dani looked at the lady and shook her head. "No, it was real! We went and visited mom!" Dani argued, looking at Sara.

"I haven't heard from mom in years, Dani," Sara said quietly.

Dani's mind was racing. She didn't know what was happening. "No, we got a letter… from the jail! It said that we should visit her because she was sick."

Sara shook her head. "That… never happened."

Dani had figured out by now that the lady was a psychologist. "What's happening?" She asked the shrink.

"You've made up your own reality," She answered.

Dani took a breath. "So what is real?"

"To find out what is real, we must take out what is fake," Grissom said, speaking up for the first time. Dani's head turned quickly, she hadn't noticed that he was in the room.

Tears fell down Dani's cheeks. "I want to talk to Adam," she said quietly. Grissom and Sara looked at each other, then at Dani.

"What?" Sara asked.

Dani looked up at Sara. "I want to talk to Adam… my best friend?"

Sara opened her mouth slightly, took a breath, then spoke, "Dani… what do you mean?"

Dani let out a laugh. "Do you mean to tell me that I made him up too?"

Sara shook her head. Grissom spoke before Sara could give Dani an explanation. "When the both of you were kidnapped… he… didn't make it," Grissom said softly.

Dani shook her head. "No… no… he did… he was alive… he got rescued before me! Grissom… you saved him!"

Grissom shook his head lightly. He didn't want to force what happened on Dani, all they could do was tell her the truth, and see if she believed it.

"What about all the times I saw him after it happened then?" Dani asked.

"It wasn't real," The psychologist said softly.

Dani shook her head and began to sob. "What… about… the play?"

"Phantom of the Opera?" Sara asked. Dani looked up and nodded.

"What about it?" Grissom asked.

"Adam was in it," Dani said breathlessly.

Sara shook her head. "No… your friend Chris was," Sara replied.

"Adam was too," Dani repeated.

"I'm sorry Dani," Grissom said quietly. Dani looked up and smiled weakly at Grissom. She didn't know what was happening. She didn't feel real. Her life was an entire lie. She didn't know the difference between what was real and what she had made up. She didn't know when she began to hallucinate and make her own alternate reality. She doubted that anyone else did either.

Dani turned to the psychologist. "When did this start?" She choked out, tears falling as she spoke.

The psychologist looked down at her notes, which were in a notebook on her lap. "I would guess that they started after the kidnapping-"

"Which one?" Dani cut in.

"The second one," She answered. "To cope with the loss of your friend-"

"Best friend," Dani cut in again.

"To cope with the loss of your… best friend, your mind changed how you saw the kidnapping, and then changed reality completely," she explained.

The psychologist kept talking, mostly to Grissom and Sara, but the only thought that went through Dani's mind was:

'I'm not real.'

THE END