Audition

It was the day after River Song's parents had last appeared in her life. It was also several years beforehand. Time travel could be complicated that way.

She was sitting in a cafe, opposite The Doctor. He was over one thousand years old, but his expression was sad like a lost child's. In front of him was an open newspaper and his meal, untouched (well, two meals, he'd been planning to combine the main with the dessert). There was also a cup of tea, though for the first time since she'd met him, he looked like he'd benefit from a coffee.

The Doctor looked down at the table. "Why do they always leave me?" he said. "I'd have never left them."

"Not all of your companions leave," River said. reaching out to touch his hand.

He looked up briefly, and she thought she could see an even deeper sadness in his eyes. He dipped his head again, his floppy hair swinging like a pendulum, hiding his expression.

She hated to see him like this. Even the fez she'd given him hadn't helped. "Maybe you just need to get back on the horse," she suggested. "Get a new companion."

He looked up at her once again. "But who? I've had so many, and as soon as I've got used to them they've disappeared. back to their own lives, either that or died horrifically. Don't they realise that their life should revolve around me."

Some people might think of that as slightly self-centred, but River knew what it was like to crave attention and be disappointed. "Maybe you should pick someone who can understand you, Sweetie. An equal." She didn't really consider him an equal, but flattery was one of her more devastating weapons. And now she was using it to try and become his next companion - aaargh, she was becoming like her mum.

"An equal?" he said with scorn. For a man so acute he could be tremendously obtuse, his doctorate certainly wasn't in reading between the lines. He looked down at the paper. "Maybe I should just settle down in one place," he said, peering at the property section. "Not that I intend to move, my current infinite but bijou residence suits me fine."

"Maybe we could go and see a film?" River suggested, seeing that the entertainment section was also visible.

"I don't think-" began The Doctor, as his eyes moved across the paper. "Wait, River, you're a genius!" he said, leaping to his feet. "I can't see how I didn't see it before." He ran around and gave her a hug. while also managing to jump up and down with excitement. Probably best that he didn't have that coffee, after all. "I need an equal, not an opposite, someone who can truly appreciate my genius."

"Glad to have-"

"Sorry, River, haven't got time," he said, grabbing a fish finger from his plate, and trawling it through the custard in his bowl. "Off to meet my new companion."

"Your new-?" she began, but by then the cafe door had closed behind him.

Confused, River walked around to the other side of the table, wondering if she could see any clues in what he'd been reading. The paper had been the last thing he'd been looking at, but there was nothing obvious. Just the property and entertainment sections. She looked at the titles, Homes and What's On, and the truth began to dawn on her. She then looked more closely at the flats available and she knew what game was afoot.

"Oh, so that's it, is it?" said River, looking at the vortex manipulator on her wrist. "Well, Sweetie, two can play at that game."

It was the day before John Watson first appeared, but it would be a day before Sherlock Holmes would know that.

On this day, a wholly different Doctor entered Sherlock's life, as he went to look at a flat in Baker Street he was interested in, only to found a strange man standing outside it.

"I'm The Doctor," the man said introducing himself, offering an outstretched hand. "You don't live here yet, my mistake. Mrs. Hudson just told me." He withdrew his hand, just as quickly, waving at the lady in the house window with a big smile on his face.

This 'Doctor' was the most unreadable person that Sherlock had ever met, his body language seemed almost alien. Contradictory adjectives flashed in front of Sherlock's eyes. The man was young but so old, and his bowtie oscillated between cool and uncool as did his fez. And half of the telltale signs on his clothes just flicked up in Sherlock's brain as unknown. And what on earth did timey-wimey mean?

The Doctor was a mystery, an enigma, a puzzle. Sherlock was fascinated.

"I'm here for an audition," The Doctor said. "See if we'd get along."

"Flatmates," Sherlock realised. Of course, this man was so different, he must have been sent by Mycroft. "I should warn you that I play the violin when I'm thinking, and sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."

"Well, I can be pretty changeable at times," said The Doctor, suddenly less ebullient. "And once it led to mass genocide."

For the longest time, Sherlock thought he was being serious. This puzzle just got more convoluted.

"Fair enough," he finally said. "Nobody's perfect."

Sherlock had only known The Doctor for an hour, and already Sherlock had eliminated the impossible and found that, in The Doctor's case, little else remained. He'd still not recovered from viewing The Doctor's current home. When The Doctor said he was currently living in a box, the actuality was far different than Sherlock had been expecting. It was unconventional by any definition, especially the conventions of reality and physics. There seemed only one logical conclusion, and now he regretted how he'd ignored Mycroft's past warnings about recreational drug use. As he pondered his sanity, he was relieved when his mobile phone beeped, and it was a text from Lestrade informing him of a murder.

"Let's go," he said. "There's a corpse they want me to look at."

"Marvellous," said The Doctor, rubbing his hands. "Is this one of your locker room mysteries?"

"Locked room!" corrected Sherlock. "Hope so."

And so they were on their way in a black London cab, despite The Doctor offering to drive him there.

At the scene of the crime, the details leaped out at Sherlock. "It's the locked room mystery you were hoping for," he told The Doctor. "I think it's fairly obvious what happened."

The Doctor frowned. "I'm sure i can figure it out. It's all a bit cluesy-woosy." And then The Doctor pulled out something, but Sherlock couldn't see what it was since it was hidden by all of the words that leaped out at him. Sherlock got a headache as every word but 'screwdriver' appeared before his eyes.

"Maybe the killer travelled back in time," theorised The Doctor, waving his thing which couldn't be a screwdriver around, "or beamed into space. Is that a crack in the wall?"

"So, who's this idiot?" asked Lestrade.

"He's my new assistant," they both said in unison, and then stared daggers at each other. This would clearly never work. Those were the last words they would ever say to each other, at least in this story, as they both stormed out of the room, almost getting stuck together in the doorway on the way out.

"Assistant, do I look like somebody's assistant?" River Song sat in her azure evening gown on the rooftop of the hotel, listening to The Doctor, dressed in fez, white tie and tails, once again recounting his tale.

"Anyway that idea of yours didn't work," he continued. "The man's just a modern day Madam Vastra. And he looked at me the same way that she looks at -"

"Jenny," she interrupted, pleased to finish his sentence, the way that only couples who really know each other can do.

"Strax," he continued. "Hmmm, maybe I'll go and spend some time back in Victorian London, lose myself in the clouds." He looked wistfully into the distance. "Anyway, how have you been?"

"Been hanging out with a young Irish lad. His name's Jim, you met him once, drinks like a fish, great at karaoke. Worried I might have corrupted him though. Hopefully that mental dam will hold."

"Sure there's no harm done," said The Doctor as they both looked over at the alien horizon and watched the myriad of suns endlessly setting.

The End