While Hathaway slept, Robbie studied the makeshift array of papers and photos scattered on the wall. "Bloody, hell." Robbie whispered as he recognized the handwriting on some of the notes. He looked around the room as every hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Robbie reached out and touched the elegant block handwriting of a man who spent years printing neatly inside the squares of crossword puzzles. "Oh, James. What have you done?" He asked the empty room, tears springing to his eyes.

It was after midnight by the time Hathaway began to stir. Robbie took a glass of water and some Paracetomol and sat down on the edge of the younger man's bed. "Take this and drink all of this."

"I'm so sorry." Hathaway mumbled as he sat up holding his head and following Robbie's instructions.

"Well, you ought to be, canny lad. "

"At least it let me sleep, though I can't say it did me much good at the moment." Hathaway looked up and suddenly realized that Robbie was still there. "How long was I out? Why are you still here?"

"About ten hours. I don't like you drinking like that, but knowing what I think I know about what you have done, that was just about the thing I wanted to do first off too," Robbie said with disgust.

James scrunched his eyes, confused. "God. That sentence is making my head go round. I don't know what you mean. What I've done?"

"Don't. Alright? Just don't. You've no idea what you have been messing with. I thought you of all people would be smarter than this, you being almost a priest and all, " Robbie snarled.

"You're angry. I don't understand. What exactly do you think I have done?"

Robbie stood up and paced a few steps from the bed and then turned back, "Don't lie to me. I know what you have been dabbling in and you couldn't have done anything that would have made you more vulnerable to these people. How could you, lad. I don't have a clue how to protect you now."

"I honestly don't know what you mean," James denied in shock.

Robbie put on his grimace that used the same muscles as a smile and said as if he was wounded, "It was the handwriting that gave you away. I'd know it anywhere. I would have thought your lot would think it was a sin."

James looked at him blankly, then his brows furrowed in offence. "My lot?"

"For Christ's sake, man." Robbie sighed and gestured for James to follow.

James got up and limped into his sitting room. Robbie pulled a note off his board and handed it to James. "Want to keep pretending that that is your handwriting?"

James looked up at the clutter on his wall, "I didn't do all of this. Shit." He wrapped his arms around his head. "What should I do, Sir?"

"I have no idea, lad—"

James rubbed his temples and searched the room. "Not you, Robert. Sorry. "

"Then who else do you think you're bloody talking to?"

Morse was suddenly there, looking sheepish and casting fondly amused glances at Robbie. "Oh alright. He won't believe you. I have tried to make him see me in the past and he is too bloody-minded to just look at me."

"Well, he evidently saw your handwriting. He knows there is something up." James throws sarcastically toward a seemingly empty chair holding up the note and pointing at it with a look on his face that meant this was obviously Morse's fault.

"James?" Robbie is horrified as he watches James speak to an empty room.

"What should I say to him, then?" James pleads.

Morse moved close to Robbie who was digging in his pocket for his phone to call Laura. Robbie's hand was shaking as he tried to scroll through his phone. James reached out and put his hand very lightly on Robbie's and took the phone out of his hand.

Robbie's chin quivered and when he looked up at James, his eyes were misty with the pain behind his worry. "James…Lad…"

"I know. I am not saying you are even wrong. Everything going through your head right now, could be. All I am asking is that you talk to me for a few minutes first. I may have gone mad. I may be ill. My biggest fear…is worse than that. " James said calmly.

"How? What have you bloody done? You can't play with that stuff. It's not a sodding game." Robbie lamented as if he already knew the answers.

"You think I conjured him? Is that it?"

"I don't want to know. I don't care. Just undo it, now."

"If you feel any form of friendship for me, please just listen. He contacted me. Not the other way around," James explained.

Robbie looked as if he were slapped in the face, "feel any sort of…you are me best mate you daft gadgie! Is this what you've been up a height about lately? You had a question about … you must be micey, lad, if you can't even remember I don't walk through fire for just anyone."

Morse chimed in just then, "For God's sake, Lewis. Speak English. I did make a valiant attempt to teach you rudimentary grammar. I despair at your Geordie regression!"

Hathaway repeated it word for word in a near whisper.

Lewis looked up at him eyes wide. "It can't be him, James. They lie. Whatever you think you are talking to. It isn't him."

"I sincerely hope that isn't true," James said sadly.

Robbie came up to him and studied James. "Send it away."

"I don't know how in the first place and in the second, I am not sure I want to."

"I don't understand."

James nodded, "I know. Look, if he is here, you have to consider that there must be a reason. If he isn't here, then…Robbie…the alternative is …"James looked like the last thing he wanted to say was about to come out of his mouth, "the only other answer. The most likely answer, in fact, is that I am dying. Brain tumors do run in my family, so it isn't as farfetched as Ghosts, but … I gave last rights to a man. He lingered for three days and swore there was something in the room he was terrified of. By the third day, whatever he was talking to was more comfort to him than we were. I do believe in guides. I do believe that something is here."

There was horror on the older man's face. "Jesus, no."

"I'm sorry."

"We will get you an appointment. The best of the best. We will fight this." Robbie said with pure surety.

James looked at his hands. "No. I won't fight it. Part of me isn't enough to fight for. I could end up like that boy from our first case. When you retired from retirement. No. I accept God's will, Robert. No matter the answer. I like the Ghostly Governor came back from the beyond to save you much better than I do the idea that you would spend a moment…mourning."

Robbie sat down his face a study in catatonia.

"Whatever the answer, He says you are in danger and no matter the reason. I will save you. Please, help me."

Morse appeared next to James. "His heart is going into arrhythmia. You are killing him, you fool. I told you he couldn't take losing you! "

James shouted, "Then help me convince him!"

Morse nodded, "I will tell you what to say."

"Johnson called you Bob and you hated it." James repeated adding, "Probably as much as I hated Jim."

"Stop it." Robbie pleaded.

"You threw a tape in the river for him. Didn't tell him for years?"

Robbie swallowed, "Mistake there demon, I never told him."

"He says he figured it out all by his little chief detective self and he knows what was on it. He never thanked you." James explained.

"Please don't do this. Stay with me James." Robbie said dramatically.

"Oh. Oh, You think…of course. No he's not in me Robert. He's over there. Here." James took Robbie's hand and stuck it in the middle of Morse's chest area.

Morse complained at once, "Hey. Don't stick your hands in…"

Robbie said in pure astonishment, "It's cold."

"Yes." James smiled in wonder.

"That's it, boy. He's calming down now. Keep talking to him. Tell him that if he will just accept that I am me and that I am here, then all the other possibilities become moot," Morse said with a roll of his eyes as Robbie moved his hand in and out of the Inspector's chest.

James relayed the idea.

"Oh, God. Sir?" Robbie croaked as he couldn't stop the emotion of grief renewed stinging his eyes and he quickly tried to brush the spillage away but new ones just took their place, "You know I loved you dearly, Sir. But Why? Why would you put this on James? You should have come to me. Why?"

Morse chuckled and looked at Robbie with pure pride, "You see that, James? Got the first question right…didn't he?"

James smirked and agreed.

Robbie grew wary, and sniffing he asked, "What did he say?"

"He bragged that you got the most important question right on the first try. I evidently need more training." Hathaway admitted with a bashful pleasure. "He says he's very proud of you."

"Oh, give over, you had me on for a bit. Now I bloody know it isn't you, Sir." Robbie challenged.

"I, on the other hand, drink like an amateur, have disgraceful taste in music and need my hand held crossing the street. He wants to know why you put up with me." James said then shrugged his shoulders and addressed the air to Robbie's left, "I paraphrased, Sir."

"Why didn't he come to me, lad?"

"He says you won't look at him."

"I just stuck me hand in him, didn't I"

James shrugged, "I don't know how it works, Robbie. The barkeep heard him, but nobody at the Pub saw him either."

"Back to it then. Why?"

"Says he promised to always protect you, just like you would me. He came back to warn us that it is all starting again. There is a new Disciple in Oxford."

"If he knows so much, why doesn't he just bloody well tell us who it is?"

James smirked and cleared his throat, "He wishes me to explain that he's a bloody ghost and not a genie, Father Christmas or the sodding tooth fairy."

Robbie looked up suspiciously, "You paraphrased again."

James looked at the ghost and sighed with disapproval, "Consider it a gift. He appears to have been a bit temperamental?"

Robbie looks shocked and jumps a little as a display of books topples to the ground. "What about me Val? Can she…"

Morse sighs in disgust, "See? This is why you were not supposed to tell him. Every answer is a new can of worms. I am in a bit of trouble here. Mrs. Lewis has a peaceful spirit and I am … not supposed to be here if I followed the rules."

James snickered. Robbie looked offended.

"No. Sorry. Was Morse a bit of a trouble maker?"

Robbie shrugged, "Aye. He would have made Chief Super seven or eight times over if he wasn't."

"He says Val is a peaceful spirit. She wouldn't want to…er…break the rules." James explained carefully.

Robbie sighs, both frustrated and disappointed. "Can he give her a message?"

James gets an odd look on his face and tears spring to his eyes now as he relays, "They watch. They know. All we feel, they feel with us. He says not to mourn because it makes them sad too. He says she knows everything. Including that he's here and that is going to be a problem if we don't stop it."

Robbie laughed. He shook his head and said, "I need a drink, lad."

James exhaled softly, "Me too."