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"It's raining."
John remembers the words.
"I said, it's raining."
"I know it's raining. I know it's raining just like I know that's you're not really hear, like I know you're rotting in a graveyard and my mind must be rotting too."
"John."
"Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like he used to say it."
"Like I still say it."
The rain, that remarkable valuminous rain rises into a roar, and John doesn't turn around from the fire.
"You're not real."
"That's no way to treat an old friend."
"You're dead."
"Yes, I've heard."
The pearly raindrops gain momentum and courage and hammer against the roof like a hail of bullets.
"Bur you can't believe everything you hear."
And the bullets have just as easily turned back to pearls.
"If I try to touch you, there'll be nothing there. There never is."
John expects it will begin to thunder soon, as the rain swells again. Rain, he's noticed, is more tempermental than anyone he's ever met.
"You've seen me before."
"Every day. You never talk this much."
"That's because it wasn't me before."
"It's not you now."
And there's the thunder, just as he expected.
"If I turn to look at you, you'll disspear."
"Look, then. If I'm only an apparition, you have nothing to lose. You can't miss what was never there."
The storm has made up it's mind to be a big one after all. And John decides to turn.
"You see?"
"But I don't believe."
God, will that thunder ever stop? it's making John's head hurt.
"I'm crazy now, Sherlock. Haven't you
heard? I'm not above hulicnations."
"That may be. But I am real."
"You can't be."
"I never died."
"I checked your pulse."
"Not thuroighly enough, I'm afraid."
"Spoke at your funeral."
"A body is not neccesary for a burial."
"You are in my head."
John suddenly wondered when it got so dark in the flat. The fire casts ghastly
shadows on the apirition before him.
"You can't touch an aplirition, John."
Lighting, now. It's throws the dark figure into sharp relief.
"But I'm no aplirition. I can prove it."
The storm pounds so ferociously that he thinks the roof might spring a leak.
"Take my hand."
And he can't resist, and oh, oh, those hands are warm, and real, and Sherlock.
"I've missed you, John."
And John forgets all about the rain.