That morning Rose bounded into the console room, showered and dressed. The Doctor was under the console, his sonic screwdriver out as he fiddled with the Tardis. Rose leaned over his shoulder to watch what he was doing.

'What'cha doing Doctor?' she asked.

The Doctor jumped, losing his grip on the sonic screwdriver and causing sparks to jump from the wires he held. He caught the sonic before it could do more damage and replaced the wires. 'God Rose, don't do that, you stopped my hearts!' he said, climbing out from where he was working. He put the screwdriver back in his jacket's pocket and pulled the Tardis' screen towards himself, looking at diagrams and squiggles that meant nothing to Rose. Obviously though, the Doctor understood them perfectly and stepped away from the screen with a nod, returning the glasses he was wearing to his pocket.

'Ready to go Rose?' he asked, already pushing at buttons and pulling at levers. Rose leaned on the edge of the console as he worked.

'Where are we going?' she asked.

'I don't know,' the Doctor said and with that goofy smile of his, pulled a lever that made the Tardis shake. Rose grabbed onto the console to keep herself upright, the edge of it digging into her palms. The Doctor hung on as well as he did his best to pilot the Tardis while being flung around. Rose lurched forward, trying to stay standing. The Tardis had never flown with such speed or violence before though and Rose was thrown away from the console, throwing her hands behind her to try to find a railing or seat before she hit the ground.

She grabbed onto the railings, holding onto them with both hands. The Doctor was still standing, pulling and twisting and pushing at the console, a look of concern on his face as he did so. He slammed his palm onto a button and with one final lurch, the Tardis stopped. Everything went quiet and there was one final groan from the ship before everything shut off, the console room going dark and the engine stopping its whirring.

'Doctor?' Rose whispered, not moving an inch from where she stood, hanging onto the railing. 'Doctor, what's happened?'

'I..' the Doctor started flipping and pulling switches again to no result. 'I'm not sure. Everything's just shut off, but that's not possible, that can't happen!'

'Where are we?' Rose asked, finally letting go and walking to stand beside the Doctor. 'We've landed somewhere, but where are we?'

'Not sure,' the Doctor said, gesturing towards the door. 'Let's go find out.'

The Doctor bounded over to where Rose was standing before and slipped on his coat that was hung on the railing. He motioned for her to follow before stepping towards the door, reaching out a hand and opening it slowly. Rose hesitated before following, stepping out of the Tardis after the Doctor. Before them stood two very shocked looking men; one who was very tall and thin, with dark, curly hair and the other whom was shorter and more muscular, with lighter and shortly cropped hair. The tall one was looking everywhere: from the ceiling above them, to the interior of the Tardis, to Rose and the Doctor and the exterior of the Tardis' shell. He looked like he was thinking hard about something.

The short one was simply staring at Rose and the Doctor in obvious shock, looking like he was waiting for an explanation.

'Hello!' the Doctor said, throwing his hands into his pockets and grinning at the two men. 'I'm the Doctor and this is Rose Tyler. D'you mind telling us where we are?'

The taller one answered first. 'Buckingham Palace,' he said simply.

'Great!' the Doctor said, moving around and looking at a portrait that hung on the wall. 'Also, could you tell us what year it is?'

'How could you possibly be ignorant of that?' the shorter one spoke before the taller man could this time, sounding impatient and a little bit frightened. 'How did you get in here?'

'Oh, never mind that,' the Doctor wove his hand. 'Seriously though, what year is it?'

Rose spoke up. '2012,' she said. She held a newspaper that was lying around. 'The date on here is May 12th, 2012.'

'Oh good,' the Doctor said, taking the newspaper. 'So we're not that far away from your time and we're still in London! We haven't gone too far, have we? I wonder how we got here though…'

'You're speaking nonsense,' the tall one said. 'Explain yourselves. How did you get in here? What is that box? Who are you?'

'Well, long story,' the Doctor said, taking out his glasses again and flipping through the newspaper. 'And I've already told you: Doctor, Rose. While we're getting to know each other; what are your names?'

The tall one sat down before speaking. 'I'm Sherlock Holmes and this is John Watson.'

There was a pause where the Doctor stopped rifling through the newspaper and Rose froze in place. Slowly, the Doctor looked up and returned the newspaper to the table. After a moment, he spoke. 'I'm sorry?'

'I'm Sherlock Holmes and this is John Watson,' the man – Sherlock Holmes, apparently – repeated.

Rose let out a nervous laugh, looking over at the Doctor with wide eyes. He returned her gaze, a look of excitement on his face. 'No, but… seriously? Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?' the Doctor asked, looking between the two men. 'Oh but this is Christmas!'

'You're serious?' Rose said, looking between everyone in the room. The Doctor looked delighted, Sherlock looked annoyed and John looked confused, his gaze going from The Doctor to Rose and back.

'One way to be sure,' the Doctor said, fishing in his pockets for something. 'It's in here somewhere, I swear… let's see. Sonic screwdriver, yoyo, banana – could you hold that Rose? – paperclip necklace… ah, here it is!' the Doctor pulled out the physic paper and handed it to Sherlock. 'What does it say?' he asked.

Sherlock flipped it open and looked at it for no longer than a second. 'Nothing, it's a bunch of wavy lines.'

'Aha!' the Doctor said in delight, taking the physic paper back from Sherlock. 'Well, that proves it Rose! That is definitely Sherlock Holmes!'

Rose laughed. 'Oh my god,' she said. 'Oh my god.'

John spoke up. 'I don't understand!' he said. 'Why are you so delighted about this and why didn't you believe we were who we said we were?'

'Oh just making sure John Watson,' the Doctor said, grinning madly when he said "John Watson".

'Oh,' Sherlock said, sounding frustrated. 'Don't tell me you read John's blog.'

'No, we -' Rose started to say, but the Doctor cut her off.

'Yes, we do read John's blog! Big fan of it actually,' the Doctor said. 'Oh Rose, you can give me back that banana now.'

Rose handed the banana back to the Doctor who tucked it in his pocket while saying, 'Bananas are a great source of potassium. Never go to a party without a banana.'

'Who are you?' Sherlock asked, standing up. 'And how did you get in here?'

'Long story,' the Doctor said. 'And I'm not really sure of most of it myself. But if you're Sherlock Holmes, you should be able to tell me who I am, shouldn't you?'

Sherlock paused for a moment. 'Both of you have accents that would suggest you are from London, but neither of you recognized the fact that you were in Buckingham Palace, which should have been rather obvious. Somehow, you didn't know where you were or what the date was. You told Rose that you weren't far off from her time, so either you are mad or you're not from around here.

'You've also somehow managed to get that police telephone box in here. How you even acquired one is a mystery to me, they haven't used those since the 1960's. By the state of both of your trainers I'd say you do a lot of running and walking, probably over many different terrains. You're probably travelers, you move around a lot.'

Sherlock moved to circle around Rose. 'You're young, probably around the age of twenty. You're unemployed and you're also not in school, are you? You can't be if you spend so much time traveling around with this man. You're also very attached to this Doctor, you depend on him but you also try to take care of him. You're definitely from around here, you probably grew up in or around London… but not anymore.'

The man stepped away to walk around the Doctor. 'And you… you look young. Your body and facial features would suggest you are in your early thirties. Yet your eyes look old. You look like you've seen many deaths, many fights and have suffered tremendous losses. But there is also hope, even after all you've seen. You've kept your faith, but not faith in a god or a higher power… you believe in goodness, don't you? You believe that the human race is still good and pure even after so much evidence that has proved otherwise. You also hide many secrets, Doctor. You're accent is that of a Londoner, but you are not from around here.

'You haven't told us your true name. You call yourself "the Doctor", but I doubt you are actually a medical doctor. But it's more than a title for you, it's a disguise. You call yourself the Doctor, but I ask you this: Doctor Who?'

The Doctor was silent, his face unreadable. 'That's not a question you want answered, trust me.'

'Oh?' Sherlock said. 'And why not?'

'Because the answer is dangerous,' the Doctor said. 'Very dangerous.'

'Yup,' the Doctor said, popping his p. Suddenly back to his regular, goofy self, the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand. 'Well it was lovely meeting you Sherlock, John. Rose and I'll be going now though. C'mon Rose.'

Rose waved and the two walked out of the room, leaving their mysterious blue box behind. John and Sherlock both approached it slowly and cautiously. The door had closed itself and a few pushes from John assured they wouldn't be opening anytime soon without a key. Sherlock inspected every inch of the box he could, but still couldn't understand where it had come from or how the odd couple had gotten it in Buckingham Palace.

'Come on John, we're following them,' Sherlock said, exiting the same way the Doctor and Rose did.

'Agreed,' John said, casting one last glance at the blue box and following Sherlock.