A wave washed over me, and I fought my way back to the surface, desperate for breath. The shore glimmered barely a hundred yards away, but I was beginning to think I would not reach it.

I was tiring.

I had blinked open my eyes in the middle of the ocean, snapping out of a dream that Holmes had returned to find that the dream had been more like a regression, and I had wandered. I had no idea how I had gotten myself so far from shore, but it hardly mattered now. My shoulder wound had taken my ability to swim, and there was no one in sight. I was going to drown.

Even worse, I was going to be conscious until I did so. I would much rather have never woken.

Another wave swept over my head, and I swallowed more water even as I fought my way to the surface. I truly did not care if I lived or died, but I could not force myself to inhale water. I knew how painful that would be, and I would much rather pass out first.

Until I did so, however, I also could not deny the instinct to fight for my life.

My head broke the surface once more, and I managed to keep my face above water just long enough to gasp before I finally went under for the last time.

I forced myself to hold my breath, slowly sinking beneath the waves as I hoped to pass out before I inhaled again. The clear water let the sun shine through brightly, and I turned my gaze skyward. The sunlight on the waves—and the bubbles floating to the surface—would be the last thing I saw.

I began to feel the need for air, but I did not inhale. Another few seconds, and I would simply never wake up. I could make myself wait another few seconds. Would it hurt to inhale water, even unconscious?

I did not believe so. I had nearly drowned once before, and it had only hurt later—after Holmes had pulled me out.

Holmes. I would see you soon, my friend, and Mary, too. I looked forward to it. There was nothing left for me here.

My vision began to darken, and I let my eyes drift closed. It would not be long, now.

"WATSON!"

My eyes shot open, and the first thing I registered was that someone was frantically shaking me.

"Wake up, Watson!"

The second thing I registered was a desperate need for air, but I denied it. I was underwater…wasn't I?

"Confound it, Watson. Breathe!"

The sitting room came into focus, Holmes' intensely worried face in front of me. He shook me harder.

"Watson!"

I was not underwater, and I gasped, nearly wheezing in my haste to inhale. Holmes finally stopped shaking me, pulling me to a sitting position as I tried to catch my breath instead of hyperventilate, and I gripped whatever was in my hand, using the touch to assure myself that this was not another dream. For the first time in weeks, the touch of the water in my dream had felt different from the touch of the cushion beneath me, and I latched onto the difference. The contrast meant that this was real, that Holmes had truly returned, that I had a reason to continue living.

To do that, I needed to breathe, and I ignored the way my head swam to focus on steadily inhaling and exhaling.

My breaths finally deepened and started to slow, and I eventually realized Holmes gripped my shoulder, staring at me intently as the vertigo cleared.

"What in blazes were you dreaming?" he asked when I had calmed enough to focus on my surroundings.

I fought to speak. "D-drowning," I answered after a moment, my voice not wanting to work after such an intense nightmare. My gaze flicked around the room, marking various things that had changed in the last couple of hours to double check that this was the present. "I was…in the ocean," I continued, not paying complete attention to what I said as I focused more on catching my breath and getting my bearings. Everything so far had matched, and I was grateful. "The sitting room was the regression, and I woke a hundred yards from shore, perhaps a mile from where I spent the night. I refused to inhale water when I went under—better to pass out first. Less painful."

He said nothing for a moment, and I realized I had a white-knuckle grip on his hand, not a cushion.

"Sorry."

I tried to let go, but he merely gripped my hand in return, letting me use him as an anchor, though he still stared at me intently. I ignored it at first, more concerned with catching my breath, but I finally spoke again when he continued staring.

"What is it?"

He shook his head, refusing to answer, and only then did I realize what I had said—and what he had deduced from it. I felt my face warm, and I hunted for words, trying to decide how I could undo the implication I had not meant for him to know.

"How do I prove to you I am real?" he asked again before I could find my words. "How do I prove to you that this is real?" He gestured, encompassing Baker Street, his return, and everything else.

I opened my mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. How could he prove it? I had finally believed him shortly before falling asleep, but a single dream had rendered all of it a lie. I probably would have woken on my own eventually, as I doubted my determination to hold my breath would have lasted after I lost consciousness, but I had genuinely expected not to wake up. I had stopped breathing almost long enough to go into hypoxia because of a dream.

I had so lost the ability to tell dream from reality that whatever dream in which I found myself became my reality.

"I…don't know," I answered after a long moment, and for the first time since I had met him, he made no attempt to hide the terror he had felt on seeing me stop breathing.

"There must be something," he insisted, and I wondered if I imagined the hint of pleading that leaked into the words.

I hesitated again, thinking. Was there anything?

I remembered the first thing I had done on waking, and I looked around the room.

"Move something," I blurted. "Anything. Put something where it never was before."

He raised an eyebrow, wondering how that would prove anything.

"The first thing I do when I find myself in a memory," I explained, "is check my surroundings. A date on a letter. A lamp out of place." I gestured toward the chemistry table. "Even what experiment you have active can sometimes give me an exact date to the memory, and I know what script to follow. If you change something now that you never changed then…"

I let my voice trail off, but he finished the sentence, "It will make you realize this is not a dream." He stood, searching for something to move. "But how will that help while you are in the dream?"

I had no idea. "Come back to that in a moment." He reached to move a picture to the other end table. "1887."

He stilled, glancing questioningly between where I still sat and the picture he held in his hand.

"If that picture is not on that end table," I explained, "it is before 1887. You placed it there as a joke when I teased you about enjoying a detective series he helped author."

He frowned but set the picture aside to look around again, quickly spotting something in the clutter on the mantle.

"1882." He changed direction. "'89. '85. Now you are just testing me."

He smirked, replacing the trinket his first royal client had given us and voicing a question I had expected him to deduce on his own.

"Why do you know specific dates?"

Silence answered him for a long moment as I decided what I wanted to admit. "I had to," I finally replied. "I am fully aware in every dream, and if I do not follow the script in the memories, they quickly become nightmares."

"That is why you asked what the case was earlier."

I nodded. "Very little in this room has changed since that last day, and I decided I was dreaming a visit during my marriage. Most of those were case related."

Muted sympathy appeared in his gaze, but he turned back to the room. "What does not have a year assigned to it?"

I studied the room, slowly identifying a handful of things. "The bookshelf," I finally answered, "that chair, and…the chemistry set itself."

I knew he would never move or change his chemistry set, but he swapped the chair I referenced with another on the other side of the room before walking to the shelf and studying the titles. "What would you notice?"

What could we change? It needed to be something noticeable but not inconvenient. "Why not switch the shelves? Move one down and one up?"

He hated moving his reference materials around, but he never hesitated, quickly doing as I suggested. I nodded to the questioning look he sent when he finished. I would be able to see that from anywhere in the room.

"What else?" he asked, pointedly glancing toward the stairs.

I shook my head. "My room already looks different, and I doubt I would fall asleep in yours."

A faint smirk twitched his mouth, recognizing the reference to my opinion on his decorating scheme. How he could sleep with all those faces peering down at him, I had never understood, but the few times I had ever managed it were light dozes while sitting vigil.

He crossed the room to again sit in his chair, still staring at where I had turned to sit upright on the settee, and amusement rose in me at the obvious question in his gaze. He did not have to repeat himself for me to know what he was asking.

"I do not think there is anything," I said, referring to how we could establish a dream was a dream before I woke. I paused for a moment, debating whether I wanted to voice my thoughts. What I considered saying would bring some encouragement, but to give that encouragement, I would have to admit another weakness. The worry still in his gaze granted me the words. "There was a difference between the dream and the settee this time. It will get better."

"This time?" he repeated, wondering if I had misspoken. Understanding dawned in his gaze a moment later, and I broke eye contact, unwilling to watch as he realized how blurred the lines had become between reality and dream.

"Watson."

I glanced back up to find him staring at me, a curious resolve in his gaze. I doubted he would voice it, and I studied him, trying to decipher his thoughts.

I could not quite manage it, however, and I raised an eyebrow when he remained silent, wondering why he had requested my attention if he had no plans to speak.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, his reddening ears giving away his discomfort at voicing what he had apparently hoped I would deduce. I waited patiently, willing to give him time to find the words.

"I am not going anywhere," he finally said quietly, watching me to make sure I understood.

I had never grown skilled at deducing from nothing, as my friend could—and often did—but I had long ago learned to hear what he left unsaid. Our friendship would never have flourished if I had not.

That had been more than a reassurance. That had been a resolve, a promise that said many things in a short five words.

I am here. You can believe in this. I will not leave you alone again.

This is real. I swear.

I nodded. I knew that. I had finally believed him earlier, and the difference between the dream and the settee served as further proof. This was not a dream or hallucination. He was truly here—I was truly here—and I knew it. It would just take time for that knowledge to reach my dreams.

I would probably end up sleeping on the settee for a while until it did—mostly because his resolve had included guarding my sleep. I would never get him to sleep if I did not take the settee; I would have a hard enough time convincing him to take his bedroom…though I might let him win that argument the first few nights, until I was sure.

I broke eye contact again, this time looking around the room to note the bookshelf, the chairs, and other, smaller, things we had moved in the last few hours, cementing them in my mind so I would have the corresponding dates the next time a memory took over. He quickly deduced what I was doing, but he said nothing, merely retrieving the index that had fallen when he woke me and flipping to a page in the middle. Silence fell over the room once more, though I did not try to go back to sleep.

I watched him instead, and he pretended not to notice my gaze as he read. He had changed over the years, in more ways than just the lines on his face. His eyes carried more wariness, speaking without words everything he had seen and done while moving from place to place, avoiding Moran until he could turn hunter into hunted. He had mentioned donning a new name for every place, and the way some of his mannerisms had changed made me wonder if perhaps those disguises had finally become a part of him in a way that I had never before seen. In the hours since he had found me on the riverbank, he had shown more emotion than I had seen through most of the years before his supposed death. He was also more willing to speak his thoughts—even the ones that used to make him uncomfortable—and I cemented in my mind the changes in him just as I had the changes in the room around me. Aside from my own wish that the trend would continue, the differences would provide another reference against another day, another memory that took over and tried to make me doubt what was real. Each change was something else I could use, another anchor I could drop in the present as I sought the pieces of myself that had crumbled away over the last few months.

I had a reason to fight now, a reason to live, and there was no need to let the past control when the present had brought back my friend.

He eventually closed that index and stood, leaving the book in its new place on the shelf before moving about the room, and I noticed him purposely moving things as he refamiliarized himself with the room—rearranging his desk, moving the clutter on the mantle, swapping blankets on the settee. I made no comment. I did not need to. I noted it, and he knew I noted it. That was enough.

So when a new, very different chemistry set appeared on his table two days later, I merely smiled and noted that, too.

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