He was an invisible kid and the fic wasn't going anywhere. Then I watched an old episode of "Medium" where Bridget had been playing with a ghost, and at the end of the episode she makes a new friend who has an imaginary giraffe companion. And suddenly I knew what was missing from this and how to end it.

But I think John's seriousness isn't just because he knows Sam's taking it seriously. I think there's partial good-Dad-ness in there (i.e., the boys are still so young that he has to be more Dad than DI), but more importantly, for me, it's that he's investigating it as if it's a real haunting. That for him and his boys, it could just be a noise in the dark...but it's probably not. Which is just so far off from normal it's positively awesome.

(BTW, I missed you at Balticon. Did you make it up? Have you been okay?)