Author's note: I know I should be studying right now. Like in finishing a report and reading a book because there are about a dozen books left I have to have finished due next week.
Well...
Life does not work that way. Or something like this.
Neither Dr. Who nor Sherlock belong to me. I am just borrowing them. Borrowing them like in 'not owning and giving them back', not like in 'kidnapping them through time and space and genocide the shit out of the world so that no one can follow us'.
Okay that was a bit harsh.
No Beta and just a short One-Shot. Sorry for that.
A Study in Time and Space
Handcuffed and Arrested
Mrs. Hudson hushed down the stairs as well as John. This was how it was supposed to happen. The plan was beginning to take form. Moriarty trying to bring him down. There were still a few things missing in the whole picture, though. But they would present themselves just like the sound of blowing wind, a strange siren.
He had been about to don his coat as papers started to fly around in the living room.
"Leave it, John", he heard Lestrade saying downstairs. Sighing he got his scarf and sat down in his chair, watching as the T.A.R.D.I.S. materialized out of thin air between kitchen and living room. If he really was to land there he would crash the table. That was ridiculous. For a moment he wondered whether he should text his brother but decided against that. The image of the blue phone box flickered for a moment and then they had a new piece of furniture that would send Mrs. Hudson into shock.
Footsteps announced the DI and his friend as they ascended the staircase. He cocked his head as Lestrade entered the living room with a sour but serious expression followed by John and finally Donovan and even Anderson. Wonderful.
"Sherlock Holmes I arrest you-"
"-HOLY SHIT!", John cursed, being the first to realize that there was a big blue box half crashed into their kitchen table.
Startled all four of them turned around, mouth open expression ranging from surprise to disbelief and 'I've missed something'. He stapled his hands under his chin as Lestrade and John turned to him.
"Sherlock-"
"- it wasn't me. I would never land her like this", he interrupted his friend. It was almost amusing how the four of them looked at him.
"I don't know how he got it in here but we are here to arrest him", Donovan said as she regained her composure. Just as the door of the blue box was opened and a man stepped out of it. Dressed in a suit, a grin plastered over his face. And a bow tie, of course. Because they were cool.
"It says pull, you know", Sherlock remarked at the way the police box had been opened. The man extended both arms towards the detective, beaming, as if he were to hug him. He did not move.
"Sherlock!", he greeted, turning towards the others, "oh, hi there. I am the doctor. Please to meet you!"
With that he started to shake hands in a rush until he practically jumped into John's armchair. Sherlock frowned at him resulting in the doctor standing up again.
"That is John's", he explained plainly. The doctor nodded in understanding.
"Who is to be arrested?"
"I"
"Why?"
"Moriarty."
"Sherlock?", John interrupted. He looked confused unsure whether to look at the foreigner or the blue box that had appeared out of the time vortex. Though John did not know where it come from. Which was precisely the problem.
"I need him to have this proof of my fall, Doctor. For whatever reason you deemed it necessary to appear right now right here: Piss off. Not good timing."
And with that Sherlock stood up and walked very deliberately over to Lestrade. He had still no intention to play the game but this was necessary. The signs were unmistakably. The graffiti, the apple...
"Perfect timing", the doctor remarked softly, gesturing with a hard expression to shut Donovan up as she intended to say something more.
"You know how this ends? Because I do. I know exactly how this ends, Sherlock..."
"Do you think I don't? I can not...", he started, clearly angered, not longer able to sustain his calm expression. Silence fell.
"Who are you?", Lestrade asked.
"I am the Doctor, as I said. Sherlock you started to heal. I can not let this happen. Not at all."
The voice of the doctor rang in his ear. He remembered the first time they had met. His friend, the Doctor, caring for him when no one else would or could. The night alone at home. A home too big and not big enough for a curious little boy. And a crack in time. A lot of running. That was what he remembered most. The running and the bow tie, the big library and the adventures. Strange planets and the persons and the time he had seen the Weeping Angel. He sighed.
"Why do you care? You brought me back and abandoned me", he claimed, turning around to face the time lord. Saw the guilt that was creeping over his face.
"What is going on?"
John's voice was steady and demanding. An order. He was frightened by the events and, moreover, that there was, again, something going on that he did not understand fully. But he did. After Baskerville he could not blame John for suspecting that he did not always tell him everything.
"When I was a child he came to investigate a crack in time in my room. He took me with him until we encountered the Weeping Angels for the first time. I was infected and he left me. Does not need to make much sense to you", Sherlock explained vaguely.
"Leaving out the bit where you demolished my T.A.R.D.I.S to look into the time vortex to get your wish granted, don't you?", the doctor added, pulling out his screwdriver and scanned him.
"The Angels are dangerous creatures. Deadliest psychopaths in time and space. I am still so sorry Sherlock. You needed to return to earth, needed to be reminded what it means to be human to heal fully. And you are starting to heal and the events taking place right now will result in the separation from the one thing that keeps you safe and healing. You are still not crying, don't you? Do you really thing that you could ever be as good as you are now after this will have been happened?"
At this he turned around, facing John. His doctor. Of course it had to be a doctor. John was still looking as if he was hallucinating. It was hard to believe – Sherlock knew that. Mycroft had taken all the time to reach Security Level 5 to believe him.
"I need you to be safe and sane, Sherlock."
"There is not so much more I can do, Doctor", he remarked with an apologetic look, still facing John.
"But that is why I am here. I am the Doctor, Sherlock. I am the Doctor and I have the T.A.R.D.I.S. All of them will be safe. Mrs. Hudson and Detective Lestrade and even John. Moriarty will not harm them. Let me help you. We will just travel a bit more."
"Prevent Moriarty from spreading lies, preventing the fall?"
"Yes."
"No fix point in time?", he asked, still unsure.
"You looked into the vortex. There has been nothing fixed with you since then, Sherlock."
He just hesitated for a moment longer. When he turned again to the Doctor he nodded, eliciting a huge smile on the face of that old human-like being.
"Wonderful!", he yelled.
"I need John."
"Of course you need him! That is the point in all of this!"
And with that the Doctor grabbed him and John, snapped his fingers and the doors of the T.A.R.D.I.S opened once again, revealing a bigger room in the inside. After all his time she looked exactly the same. All the wonders. He touched the texture of the wood, caressed her. Remembered the creatures he had encountered and the worlds he had seen.
"Do you trust me, John?", he asked as the Doctor ran inside the much bigger room and started the engines. His friend stepped to the side, looking around to see if he was the victim of an illusion. The faces of the three policeman were amusing, too.
"What...?"
"All of time and space, John. All the possibilities to end this, to prevent the highly possible outcome of me faking my own suicide or not faking it at all. Moriarty owes me a fall."
His friend looked at him again, still unsure.
"What the fuck?"
Or just stunned. Well.
"Take my hand", he said. And John did. He looked around.
"Have fun with explaining this. Torchwood will get in touch. Greet Captain Harkness, will you?"
And with this he pulled John with him, inside the T.A.R.D.I.S closing the doors behind them. The engines started and he knew that they would leave three very confused officers behind.
Life is a big adventure.
A second after the T.A.R.D.I.S had disappeared it reappeared again and Sherlock opened the door. This time in the right direction.
"Almost forgot the violin", he explained, grabbing the instrument and vanished again into the police box.
"Just tell the chief that we arrested ourselves in a police box."