The bed was cold the next morning when Sherlock's eyes opened. Her perfume on the sheets still occupied his nose, but the way it set his brain loose was blasphemy when there was no…her to go with it.

It was a cruel trick; a broken statue. The pale porcelain shards were lying on the floor; he could still see them, but the image itself was gone. She was only abstract now.

Theoretical.

Involuntarily throughout the night, he had reached out for her. His half-conscious self had been unable to remember the fact that there was nothing to reach for. His head was unfluffed. Her hand wasn't running through his hair to calm his nerves.

He had talked in his sleep; he spoke drunkenly to her of a dream in which she had given him the Judas kiss and left him dead on the floor. He had even heard her reply.

"Don't listen to the dreams, Mr. Holmes. Reality is much more pleasing."

He had thought for a brief moment that he had felt her lips and warm breath lightly dusting the crook of his neck, but when his eyes fluttered open with the strength of an infant who is straining to see for the first time, he found that he spoke to the air, and his intoxicated head had been the one who had answered him.

And now he was awake. The grey, weeping sky was casting an eerie, dull glow into the bedroom, and his eyes were still swollen with the effect of the drugs she had given him. He rubbed his shoulder. The place she had inserted the syringe was still tender, and when he touched the wound, he didn't understand why it poked at the inside of his chest.

The light fell through the window and landed on her side of the bed. It was empty, and all the sheets were wrapped around him as if he were some human burrito. He hadn't left any blankets for her, and that was dissatisfying. Where the hell was she anyway?

"Miss Adler?" he asked, his feet landing on the floor. He staggered a moment, but after getting the robe of blankets off him, he began to find his balance easier.

"Miss Adler?" he called again. The dream had been just that: a dream. It…it couldn't have been an actual reality.

Then it hit him. The recognition stabbed his brain, and he wanted to vomit. He remembered Eurus. He remembered coming home. He remembered how oddly Irene had behaved. And he remembered falling to the floor and her heels violently shaking the boards as she left him lying there: drugged and immobilized.

And he remembered that he really hadn't dreamt anything at all.

He went back onto the bed and sat there a moment on the edge, staring into the wall with a nondescript look blandly sitting on his face. His mind was as white as the sheets. His head wouldn't work properly. His hands were motionless at his sides, his head positioned straight forward, his feet pointing ahead like arrows. His mouth was an expressionless line of indifference, he inhaled precisely when he needed to, and his eyes blinked every three seconds exactly.

The door opened. It hadn't really been shut at all. John Watson gently pushed it forward, letting himself and Rosie in. He carried a cup of tea in his left hand and held Rosie on his right hip. On seeing Sherlock awake, the doctor's eyes widened and his mouth went dry with lack of knowing what words to say.

"So you're up, then?" John asked. He hadn't moved an inch from his spot in the door. Rosie sucked on her fingers and giggled at her godfather, who looked ghostly.

"I've only…just woken," he replied. John set the tea down on the nightstand and gently put Rosie onto the floor.

The little head of soft, blonde hair bobbed around on the floor for a moment, crawling around searching for something interesting to study. Suddenly she began crawling toward her godfather. Sherlock looked down at the child, who pulled herself up with his knees. She giggled into his eyes, and he let himself smile a little.

"Hallo, dear Watson," he said, sighing into the young girl's joyous face. She grabbed his nose, pinched it with all her might, and tried to yank it off his face.

"Oh no. Ah ah ah, Rosie," John tutted, removing her nose from Sherlock's face and picking her up again. "We don't…pull on people's noses. Say you're sorry to uncle Sherlock."

"Sowwy. Sowwy…" she said, without even looking in the detective's general direction. "Sowwy, sowwy, sowwy…sowwy…sowwy, sowwy, sowwy…" she kept murmuring over and over in her small, adorable voice. John bounced her in his arms with as much strength as he could manage, but seeing Sherlock in the mess he was in turned his limbs to gelatin.

"Sherlock…how…are you feeling?" John asked, coming to sit next to Sherlock on the bed. He pulled a toy from his breast pocket and handed it to Rosie. The child laughed at the sight of the teether, shoving it eagerly into her toothless mouth.

John continued when the man made no reply, "How are you…holding up? Are you…doing okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I am fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Right, you're fine. You're always fine. Why do I even ask, eh? You're great."

Sherlock huffed.

The doctor sniffed, stroking his daughter's hair. He glanced at Sherlock, who was looking more and more like an animatronic representation of himself. The cold pallor of his face gave the impression that a vampire had drained him of all his blood the previous night. The man's jaw was set, and his teeth clenched.

"You don't…you don't look fine. You…look sick, Sherlock. You look sick."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You're not fine, and it isn't the weather that's doing it to you."

"Then what is, John? Why don't you enlighten me if you're so clever?"

Despite the cold, hard image, John could tell the man's head wasn't as vacant as his exterior. His head was a painting; Psyche was splashing chaotic colors all over the canvas of his brain.

"Sherlock, you need to tell me what you're feeling."

"I'm not feeling anything. I'm a machine, remember? That's what you called me once, John. A machine. And machines don't feel, do they? I'm fine. I'm not feeling anything."

"Shut up, Sherlock. Shut up right now."

"Why?"

"Because you need to listen to me! That's why!" the doctor yelled, making Rosie's lower lip wobble. He shushed the child before going on.

"You need to listen! That's what you need! The only woman who has ever mattered to you is gone! She's gone, Sherlock. She's left, and she isn't set on coming back. It would make things a lot easier if you would stop telling yourself that you don't care. And that you don't feel. Because you do. You have a heart, and if you didn't, then Moriarty wouldn't have taken her from you! You care, Sherlock. You bloody care, and you still do. You loved her. You do love her! And it's about time you started realizing it."

"John—"

"Do you hear me, Sherlock? You've got to own up to this, and you've got to own up to this now."

"John."

"What?"

"Let me say something."

The doctor looked at his friend. He wondered if he had said too much. The look on Sherlock's face was agony.

"I need to say something. Just please…let me say it."

John scrunched his nose in thought.

"Yeah, okay. Go ahead."

Sherlock breathed deep through his nose, putting his hands over his mouth as he exhaled. John couldn't be sure if his eyes were watery or just glossy from the tumultuous night of restlessness. Nothing emotional followed, so the doctor decided not to make any conclusions. Sherlock's brow was smooth, his eyes were round, his mouth was open. It was coming. He always looked like this before he said something monumental.

"l never told her, John."

John blinked. Rosie started making irritable noises, so John hoisted her into his arms and stood up by the door to keep her quiet. Babies seemed to like it when you stood up with them.

"Never…told her what?" he asked, leaning against the door post.

Sherlock looked into his friend's face, demanding him to put two-and-two together.

"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean."

"No, I don't. What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

"Well maybe I want to hear you say it."

Sherlock was almost glowering at him.

"You're trying to trap me, John."

"Yeah, maybe I am."

John sniffed, eyeing Sherlock with severe inspection. He tapped his foot on the floor irritably.

"What kind of husband am I?" Sherlock asked. The word "husband" felt disgusting as it left his mouth. It was horrid to say.

"Not a very good one, I'd imagine," the doctor replied, briskly. "Sleepless nights of deduction…horrible hygienic habits…the odd eyeball in the fridge…"

"Are you trying to comfort me, John? Because you're really not doing a good job."

"Oh God, no," he said, coming back to sit beside his friend on the mattress and looking into his fatigued face. "I'm trying…to recruit you."

"I've said that before, haven't I?" Sherlock asked, a smirk playing on his lips.

"I wouldn't have said it if you hadn't."

The two men and the baby sat together on the bed, each one thinking their own thoughts. The tallest of the three was swimming in confusion and misunderstanding. The smaller of the three was trying to figure out how to get the words in his brain out through his mouth. The smallest of the three was trying to think through a way to desecrate the object in her hands.

"We've gotta find her, Sherlock. We need to start looking," John said, rubbing his bulbous nose in Rosie's thin hair and sniffing. She giggled.

"No, we won't," Sherlock replied.

John turned to his friend in shock. His mouth hung open, demanding an explanation. Sherlock could tell he was on the point of yelling again.

"What do you mean, 'we won't?' Sherlock, your bloody wife has gone for reasons she wouldn't tell you, and you have absolutely no desire whatsoever to search for her?"

"As ever, John; you see, but you do not observe. Of course, I want to find her. Of course, I want her back. But there was something she told me. Something she…warned me against."

John blinked. "And what's that?"

"She told me not to follow her."

"And for once in your life you're going to listen? Trust you to obey a sociopath."

"She's not a sociopath, John. Do your research."

"Well never mind what she is! For God's sake, Sherlock! She's your wife!"

"And she's also the cleverest woman I've ever met."

John's protests were all stopped in his throat. He had never heard Sherlock say anything of her in this regard before. It halted his mind in its tracks to hear him say it out loud. This was progress.

Sherlock continued, "And if she's told me not to follow her…then…"

His voice grew low and solemn.

"God knows I won't."

Sherlock bit his lip, and John watched as he grabbed an armful of sheets in his fists and slowly, quietly clenched them. His eyes were staring hard into the floor, trying to see through the boards, it would seem.

But one thing's for certain," he said, turning and looking out the window.

"What's that?" John asked, following his gaze. The rain was softly caressing the glass.

"I need to know what Eurus said to her."

"What do you think went on?" John asked. "I mean, besides the fact that two grossly self-absorbed females who also happen to be sisters-in-law were left alone to have a chat in a windowless room without supervision…I imagine things…didn't exactly end well."

"As do I."

John bit his lip.

"But honestly," he queried, "how could Eurus have said anything to piss her off? Irene'd never have let it get under her skin. Not that woman. The woman, sorry."

"Eurus didn't just piss her off. She did more than that," Sherlock replied, scratching his hair.

"What did she do, then?" John asked, his upper lip jutting out and overshadowing his lower one. His brow was a wrinkled blanket.

Sherlock's expression clouded over.

"She convinced her."

John was silent a moment, letting his exhales ruffle Rosie's thin hairs.

"It must have been one bloody good argument," he concluded. "No one convinces Irene Adler unless she wants to be convinced. She won't do something she doesn't want to, Sherlock. She's not like that. She never has been. Let's not go and forget Karachi," he added, jerking his eyebrows to the sky in remembrance.

"No," the detective responded. "She won't do something she doesn't want to; yes, that's true. But she also told me once that she would never let me have her camera phone."

"But she did give it to you…oh my God," John breathed, coming to the realization. "…and on Christmas night…oh, Jesus. Sherlock, you think—"

"I don't know. All I know is what happened last time."

"But she hasn't died; she hasn't gone and faked her death. Nothing's happened to her."

"Not yet, at least. Perhaps she left to prevent something from happening to her. Eurus…she must have said something to throw her off. I need to see my sister."

"Well what if she won't tell you anything? What if she…refuses to?"

"She won't refuse me. Not after she made me a promise. She promised to help me. That's what makes this entire affair all the more confusing."

John pursed his lips, hoisting Rosie onto his hip and heading out the door. Sherlock was behind him. Something caught his eye behind the bedroom door. Closing the door on the doctor and Rosie, he found a note sticking to the back of it.

"Oi, Sherlock—" John protested, fearing the detective had shut him out again.

"Hold on a minute, John. There's something here…" he said, pulling the note off the door and reading the message upon it.

Goodbye, Mr. Holmes. For the second time.

There was an imprint of lipstick on the bottom of the paper where she must have kissed it. He found his nose slowly being drawn toward the stationery, which smelled heavily of her perfume. He quickly inhaled through his nose and was disgusted with himself when he found his eyes closed and his mind filled with potent memories.

"Sherlock? What is it?"

He shoved the paper into his pocket and threw the door open.

"Nothing. Thought I saw something, but…I was wrong. Just the light glinting off the wood, I think. Caught my eye. Shall we go to Sherrinford then?" he asked, turning the conversation in an entirely new direction.

"Er—yeah, what about Rosie?"

"Bring her along."

"And how am I supposed to bring a baby to a prison, Sherlock?"

"You still have a Bjorn, don't you?"

"She's nearly outgrown it by now."

"There's one upstairs. I'll get it. She hasn't outgrown it yet!" Sherlock hollered as he strode past the man and towards the spare bedroom upstairs.

"How can you know that?" John hollered back.

"I checked! Just now! She'll still fit!"

The doctor groaned, coddling his daughter and laughing to himself. Now he had two children to look after, as Mary had so kindly pointed out last night. Ah, there she was again; sitting cross legged on Sherlock's bed.

"The game is on, John. He's waiting…" she said, smiling and pointing out the door. "Oh, and John," she added, stopping him on his way out.

"Y-yeah?"

"Mind the baby."

"Yeah, okay."

"She's not old enough for chips, so don't give her any."

"Yeah, I won't."

"And make sure she stays on you at all times. Don't you lose her, you idiot."

"I won't Mary," he said. "I won't."

"You do realize you're going to end up helping him find Irene Adler, don't you?"

John sniffed, and let his mind roll around for a moment. A slight smile was picking up the corners of his mouth as the realization swept over him.

He laughed, and with a wink, replied, "Yeah. Of course, I do."

And with that, the ghost of his wife had disappeared.