Chapter One
Leadworth, Scotland, Amelia Pond's house ~ the Doctor and Amelia
It is nighttime. The moon shines over an old decrepit house with an overgrown garden. A blue police box lying on its side, smoking, suddenly breaks the silence by making loud cloister bell sounds. The door of the house opens and a man in raggedy blue shirt and tie comes bounding out, a little red-haired Scottish girl behind him. The raggedy man ran over to the steaming police box, his Tardis, and shouted: "I've got to get back in there. The engines are phasing! It's going to burn!"
"But it's just a box. How can a box 'ave engines?" said the girl, Amelia.
"It's not a box. It's a time machine!" he announced.
"What, a real one? You've got a real time machine?" she asked, hardly believing him.
"Not for much longer if I can't get her stabilized. Five minute hop to the future should do it!"
"Can I come?"
"Not safe in here. Not yet. Five minutes. Give me five minutes, I'll be right back." He swung himself on top of the Tardis, preparing to leave.
Amelia looked down at her feet. "People always say that…" she said sadly.
The doctor climbed down and bent towards her, looking into her eyes. "Am I people? Do I even look like people?" he asked softly. "Trust me. I'm the Doctor." He jumped inside the Tardis. "Geronimooooo!"
The Tardis dematerialized leaving Amelia staring after it. After a moment she turned and ran back to her house.
London, 221b Baker St. ~ Sherlock and John
"Bored! Bored, bored, bored!" Sherlock Holmes slouched in his chair and punctuated each word by shooting at a spray-painted yellow smiley face on the opposite wall. His flat mate, John, a short man with sandy hair ran into the room.
"What the hell, Sherlock," John said somewhat wearily. "It's like you can't go a day without ripping a hole in the wall! I thought we had a case you were working on, that murder up in"
"You wanted to take that case, John, not me. I deduced who the murderer was moments after you left the room to go 'investigate'. As I said, boring."
"What about that other one… that man who was having hallucinations or-"
"Solved it. John, that was last week!" He heaved himself into a sitting position and threw the gun casually onto a table. John shook his head despairingly.
"I'm going out. Care to join me?"
"Where are you going." Sherlock said in a bored tone.
"Into town. I'm picking up some food so you won't have to. All you ever have in the fridge is dead things and-"
"Has there been a murder there?" Sherlock interrupted.
"Not that I know of!" John crossed the room and took the gun from the tables, removing its bullets and replacing the empty gun on the table, pocketing the ammo to keep Sherlock from inflicting further harm on the poor wall.
"A kidnapping?"
"No-" John pinched his nose exasperatingly.
"Bor-ing! Pick up some hydrochloric acid for me while you're at it. I want to try this experiment…" He sprawled himself back on the chair and ran his fingers through his dark, messy hair. "Goodbye."
John raised his eyebrows at Sherlock. "I'm not getting your acid, Sherlock." And before Sherlock could protest, he left downstairs.
Space, the Tardis ~ Doctor
The Tardis was spinning out of control. The Doctor frantically raced around the controls, pulling knobs and pushing buttons. The cloister bells sounded again, and the consul flashed red. "No no no no no!" the Doctor shouted. He pressed a final button and the Tardis disappeared out of space with its usual wheezing sound. It appeared in London with a shuddering boom.
A few passerby walked around it, not seeming to notice the blue police box that had just appeared in their midst. The doctor stepped out, and promptly stepped back in. "No! Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people, wrong wrong wrong!" He palmed himself in the head. The Tardis, which had been silent for a few minutes, startled the doctor by tolling its bells for a third time.
"NO! Not right now, not right now!" The Tardis was so bashed up from the Doctor regenerating in it that it was entering its own type of restoration cycle- one that could take hours or days. Steam began to billow from the consul, and the doctor, coughing, backed out of the Tardis, buckling on the side of it, unconscious.
Baker St. ~ John and Sherlock
After John left 221b, he stood on the street trying to signal a cab over. It was a windy April afternoon and many people were bustling about, waving over taxis before John could.
A strange sound made him turn around. Upstairs, Sherlock heard the abnormal sound too, and decided to come outside to investigate. It was a wheezy, groaning sound, and it was coming from Turner Square farther down Baker St. Sherlock emerged from 221b and looked at John. John shrugged, and together they ran towards the sound. There was a quaking boom, and it went silent. When John and Sherlock rounded the corner, they saw in the middle of the street a blue, 1960's police box standing there, steaming. As they stood there staring at it, John hanging back, Sherlock squinting at it and observing it, the door opened. A man stepped out, and before Sherlock could deduce anything about him, stumbled back in.
They could vaguely hear yelling inside, and then the police box began ringing like church bells. The box steamed more and the man stumbled out, coughing, and collapsed. John, medically trained, rushed forward to see if the man was alright. Sherlock strode over as well, and stood close as John examined his patient. "He'll be all right, breathing's steady… I wonder what the hell that was all about! And where did this old police…" he looked up at the sign. "…Police Box come from?" Sherlock said nothing but bent down to inspect the man. In the background he could vaguely hear john saying "I'm calling the police, just Lestrade at least…he'll be able to identify him…"
Sherlock could only construe a few outer things about the man, not as much as usual. He needed him to wake up, to see what this man was really all about. What he could deduce, though, was enough to see that he was a very interesting man. Sherlock stood up. John stood nearby waiting for Sherlock's verdict.
"He's in his thirties, I'd say he's older than he looks though. Childish, silly man, easily prone to boredom-"
"Like you…" interjected John.
Sherlock continued as if john hadn't spoken. "But there's something about him, strange…I don't…" he trailed off, lost in thought. John looked at Sherlock strangely, but didn't question what he'd said as the police had just showed up. "Wait- John- you called Scotland yard? What did you do that for? What's the point in the police? We have me! This is not a crime or anything." And he added, muttering. "Unfortunately…"
"Sherlock," John sighed. "He's probably just a drunk or- or something- Lestrade, he can help us identify him.
Lestrade and Sally rushed up. "The hell is going on here?" Lestrade demanded.
Sherlock maintained a slightly haughty demeanor and turned toward them. John spoke up before Sherlock. Sherlock glared at him. "We found this man here in the, um, box- he was yelling quite a bit inside it. We don't know where the hell this box came from either. It certainly wasn't here this morning."
Sally tched. "Got anything on him, freak?"
Sherlock straightened his collar. "Well. He's soaking wet, but it smells like pool water. The nearest pool is in this flat complex… so check the apartment. He brought this box here, by the looks of it, I don't know why he would, he could be drunk but I can't smell any drink or drugs on him, he's in his thirties, probably older than he looks, childish, silly man, homeless, doesn't have a family." Sherlock said in a monotone. John noticed he didn't say anything about the strangeness he'd been noticing earlier.
"You know what Greg," John said abruptly. "We'll take him in. He can stay at our flat-"
"He can?" interrupted Sherlock.
John continued. "We can keep you posted if anything happens. But," he squinted his eyes at Lestrade. "Do you know who this man is?" He gestured at the man's prone body.
"No, I don't recognize him. Sherlock, you said he was homeless, I don't know if we can pull up a profile on him. But I'll do my best. Anderson?" Anderson moved forward.
Sherlock was still being grumpy towards John so he decided to sweep off without him. "Well, I'm off. John, if you want to keep him" (he shrugged at the body) "Go ahead. I'm going to take a walk." And with that, he strode off. John sighed.
"Anderson, if you would," he indicated the man's figure. Anderson nodded and the two carried him down Baker St. to 221b, startling Mrs. Hudson up the stairs. She followed behind them worriedly.
"The things you two bring in!" she exclaimed apprehensively.
"Sherlock has nothing to do with this. This is all me," said John irritably, still put off at Sherlock, as Anderson and he, panting, heaved the Doctor up the final steps and into the room, where they dropped him rather unceremoniously onto the couch.
"Well then," said Mrs. Hudson. "I'll make him a cup of tea for when he wakes up. He's- he's not dead is he?" she asked nervously.
"No, he's not, Mrs. Hudson. I'm not Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson smiled at that, and went into the cluttered kitchen to make tea.
"Thanks…" John said absent-mindedly to Anderson. Anderson huffed in annoyance and left 221b.
"So what's his story?" Did Sherlock see him? What is this guy all about?" asked Mrs. Hudson. But before John could answer her, the man coughed loudly and sat straight up on the couch.
221b Baker St. ~ the Doctor
The Doctor was dreaming. Past regenerations flicked past his sleeping eyes. Broken voices muttered in his ears, murmuring threats and promises in his sleeping ears. He saw the Master, laughing at him. He saw Rose Tyler, years into the future, crying over the grave of her husband, the meta-crisis tenth Doctor. He saw Donna, looking at him. "Doctor… who?" she asked. "Doctor… who? The images came faster. Daleks and Cyberman, galaxies and planets. The dreams were a whirl now, a whirl of dark and light and constant noise. The Master kept laughing at him. Rose looked up and told him, "Doctor… you've changed." Finally, his mind went silent, and faded to black. And now all he could see was little Amelia Pond, waiting for him. She turned to face him. Her cheeks were stained with tears, but she smiled at him. "You are the Doctor," she said simply.
The Doctor woke up with a start, and coughed. Sitting up straight, he shouted, "I am the Doctor!" then he fell back onto the couch, and descended back into a deep sleep dreamless and dark. The Doctor was still regenerating into his new form. The Eleventh Doctor.
