"You're lying to me."
"I am not! We have already done Mars!"
The Doctor straightened his bow tie, too happy to be annoyed. He hooked a thumb around each of his braces and tried to figure out where he had left his latest fez. River hadn't been around to steal it. She'd gained quite a collected of them, all riddled with bullet holes. But he did like a fez.
He had not seen River in a month, but according to that little blue diary she had seen him just two days ago. He was spoiling her. He wandered over to his machine, lazily flicking switches. Operating it had become second nature to him; however hit-and-miss he had become at it. 'Sexy' didn't seem to mind, she normally overrided any error in command and generally understood where he was aiming to go. Well, apart from putting the brakes off.
Hang on, something he was forgetting. Rory.
"We most certainly have not 'done' Mars! Is this about me being dead?"
"Doctor it has been over a year. It was a good idea but I assure you, everyone is well aware that you are NOT. DEAD. And yes, yes we have Doctor. What was it, the Wigglewams? And you went swimming and we couldn't find you for two hours. I remember! Where's Amy…"
The Doctor rolled his eyes and turned the wheel sharply.
"Don't be stupid Rory!"
The all familiar creak of a lever being pushed upwards, followed by the all familiar procession of bright lights. And then the all familiar childishly defiant sound of landing with the brakes still on.
"The Wigglewams are a mountain range, not a people."
"Doctor-"
"Oh look, we're here. Have to discuss it later won't we? What a shame."
Striding happily towards the door, willfully ignorant of the exasperated man following. When Rory threatens to involve his wife, he half considers threatening to involve his. Thankfully, the Doctor is almost entirely confident that this time everything about the trip is going to go to plan. On holiday with the in-laws and the wife. Nope, still weird to say. On holiday with his best friends and his murderer. Much better.
No time-head babies, no plague, no vampires, no Romans, no Flesh, no Silence, no Cybermen, No Daleks, no…
"River, three minutes!"
He shouts this merrily, sticking his head out of the door, grinning widely.
… Weeping Angels, no Slitheen, no giant wasps, no police, no moon, no library…
"I can do in two! One for you, sweetie!"
The breathy reply.
He rubs his hands together with glee, like a ten year old, and grips Rory in a fierce hug.
"This will be fantastic!" he says much too loudly, hurting Rory's ears.
... And the psychopath who killed you is very unlikely to do it again, thank god. Other people, probably. But not you. Stick to the plan. The plan will work. IT WILL WORK.
The guard standing beside River's cell holds up a hand in surrender at once and opens the door. He muses briefly upon bringing a long a white handkerchief to work from now on, purely for the aesthetic appeal of being able to give up all fight eloquently. He's quite young, and clearly trying to swap careers.
He has been working here long enough to know it is pointless and has suffered enough head injuries to know not to try anyway.
The doctor retreats, sharing a wink with the woman walking slowly ("I do love annoying the staff") towards him.
Exactly.
To.
Plan.
Until, an unwanted noise:
"Doctor, we have done Mars. Amy, tell him."
"Not now, I haven't even had tea!"
This argument between her son-in-law (nope, still weird) and her husband has been going on for days and she'd been pretty successful at avoiding getting involved. She, of course, knew the answer. She, of course, had no intention of telling them.
"Let's go to London, 2012 Olympics? Can check on the house." Amy suggests, planting a kiss on Rory's cheek and hugging her daughter. That was less weird, now.
"Can't. I've done that. I'll be there. And Mars is so much more fun. So we all agree Mars then? Terrific. Stick to the plan. Don't deviate from the plan. Sound advice. River, the thrusters if you will?"
"You did the bit before the Olympics, not during. But Mars could be nice." Amy admits, watching the Doctor carefuly, "Be a fun experience for the baby to have. Oh wait…"
She looks from the Doctor to River meaningfully.
A pause.
The Doctor claps his hands together and spins around on the spot, ending up pointing with one hand at his mother-in-law (nope, still weird to say) and the other at his wife (still weird but definitely less).
"You heard your mother! New plan. London 2012 sometime prior to the Olympics! Terrific. Stick to the plan. Don't deviate from the plan. River, enter the new location if you will?"
Spins and points at Rory, "This does not mean we have done Mars!"
Shuffling over to and hi-fiving Amy, Rory whispers, "As your husband, I should tell you that you really need to stop using that to manipulate people. As a time travelling companion, I say keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore. And then some more."
River sidles over, evidently haven given up with trying to teach the Doctor, once more, to fly the Tardis in a remotely professional manner. She is dressed in khaki, having returned from an archaeological dig. Has she ever worn the prison uniform? Her description of prison as 'a hotel where you can't leave by the front door' seems true enough. Well you probably could, she had added, but it was such a long set of stairs she could never be bothered finding out.
"Amy, did we actually go to Mars?" Rory asks, suddenly doubtful.
"Can't remember for the life of me." She sighs.
The laugh hitches in River's throat, and Rory has an unusual look. It was dawning realisation. That was a rare one. The girl who could remember the Doctor couldn't remember Mars? What? Amy must distract him quickly, or the fun will be ruined.
"How about that tea then?" she smiles, grabbing his arm and wheeling him in the direction of what was definitely either the kitchen or the bouncy castle.
Why a bouncy castle?
They were cool.
The Tardis was certainly nice, if a bit… well, 'spacey'. In the solar system sense. At least that meant the kitchen was always up-to-date. Or kitchens, plural. Though this one may as well have been the only one, the others were lost in the archive somewhere. So whilst they still technically existed, she had little interest in ever trying to find them. Maybe River could make an archaeology related adventure out of it.
You could get lost in these rooms; forget you were even in a Tardis, hurtling itself forwards and backwards through space and time were it not for the ever present whir of fantastical machinery in the background. There was a trap door in the kitchen. But other than that it was almost Earthly.
Why the trap door? They had all asked it at some point. The question probably all the way back to the first companions.
"Emergencies."
"What kinds of emergencies?"
"Loads."
There had been many emergencies since they had asked those questions. The trap door had been used once, and even then it was by accident.
And every single bedroom had a default of bunk-beds which could only be changed by request. And, due to a bug in the system, they had discovered changing from bunk-beds to anything else clogged up the plumbing for days and shortened the supply of hot water for about a month.
But still.
Bunk-beds were cool.
This bug was an improvement, according to the Doctor. Before it had just meant that he could never find the kettle for a few days. Amy recalls the incredulous look she had given him mirrored in Rory's face.
They had tried to convince him to change it back to the kettle absence, but he had only become upset and yelled "But what about the tea?"
River ran a hand through her frizzy curls. Was there even a trace of Amy and Rory's genetics left in her?
"I smell like a prison. Time for a shower, or else I'll be terribly self-conscious in London. Like I'm on the run or something."
Neither of the two bothered to address the irony in that sentence as they were walking in the general direction of fried food.
"If we land in the meantime and sweetie takes a huff, send him in."
Rory and Amy's head snapped round to look at her, moderately shocked. Moderately.
River winked, and walked off.
"Where did we go wrong, exactly?" Rory mutters, though in good humour.
"Somewhere before she stole that bus, probably." Amy replies, smiling.
They were not entirely convinced of the Doctor's confidence that this trip would go to plan, but it was difficult not to get caught up in his joy. For the first time in what felt like a five hundred years, no one was chasing him. Yet.
"There is a police box in the middle of the street."
"Yes?"
"It wasn't there yesterday."
Sherlock is staring out of the window, eyes on a fixed point. Presumably said Police Box.
John wasn't really listening. Not really. He was reading a newspaper, sitting in one of the many uniform plastic chairs which were seemingly characteristic of all staff rooms. Some television presenter was revisiting the Leadworth crop circle. 'Vandalism or a Message?' was the headline. They were making a documentary.
"Vandalism." Sherlock had stated.
It was his habit to flick through newspapers now, commenting on each article as he went. This meant either sardonic remarks or very sardonic remarks about everything from murders to celebrity break-ups. But it was at least getting him some contact with the outside world.
"It has to have been, police boxes went out of use decades ago."
When Sherlock's fists slammed down on either side of the table, the anger behind the force was so great that his empty coffee mug jumped two centimetres to the right. The detective had a crazed look in his face, similar to after seeing the Hound. This earned John's attention and he slowly lowered the newspaper, keeping eye contact all the while.
"Yes. Decades. So why is there one here today? We were here yesterday, I considerably longer than you, so it must have been built in the dead of night. Why?"
John blinks.
"You don't think… that's not to do with the case is it?"
"The case? Security compromised increasingly over a week period, unable to explain why. Security staff forgetting large chunks of the day – forgetting how they managed to unlock doors, leave windows open, forgetting to report break-ins, forgetting break-ins happened,"
Fists slam down again for effect,
"Forgetting why they fired bullets. A few security guards, you suspect them. Ten, twenty, suspect them. Nearing on two hundred?"
Sherlock's face is inches away from John's. He's angry, but the thrill of the puzzle does not escape him still. He can see the deadly glint in his eyes.
"189 separate, unrelated, security guards telling the same stories – most of whom who have never even met each other. You can't suspect them all. And now we've,"
Spinning and lunging, he thumps his fist against the window. No food for three days, running purely on adrenaline.
"Forgotten a fucking Police Box. Yes. That has to do with the case. Have Anderson check the cameras – find out when it was built, if it was here yesterday – and get Lestrade down to it. I'll meet you there."
And then he was gone.
John sighed. A Police Box?
Lestrade asked the same.
Never been wrong before, he'd sighed.
The reply to that had also been a sigh, but it was in agreement.